


The Winter of Our Discount Tent

by BrandonStrayne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Assault, Attempted Kidnapping, Camping, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Children, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Homophobia, Infidelity, Injury, M/M, Muggles, Sexual Identity, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Suspense, Threesome - F/M/M, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:06:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 105,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22288348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrandonStrayne/pseuds/BrandonStrayne
Summary: The Just Blood Alliance has been petitioning for the abolishment of blood status within the wizarding world, and a small subset has decided change isn't happening fast enough and have decided to accelerate things with more...extreme measures. When they seem to set their wands on their next target, Draco Malfoy, Auror Weasley is assigned to protect him and to get to the bottom of who is behind these attacks.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Ron Weasley
Comments: 28
Kudos: 94
Collections: Ron/Draco Fest - Better Together





	1. Draco

**Author's Note:**

> Normally I have so much trouble picking a title for stories. This story worked in reverse and it actually grew out of the title. I was watching an old episode of The Red Green Show and there used to be a segment where he read bad poetry out in a winter wasteland called "The Winter of our Discount Tent." The idea burst forth from there. I was originally going to make it a Drarry story, but I never quite got around to starting it. When I saw the announcement for this fest, I thought it was the perfect time to finally get this story out of my brain and onto paper, so I want to thank the mod of the fest for the much-needed boot in the butt!
> 
> I also want to give the sincerest thanks to my three beta readers, [Keep_Calm_And_Expecto_Patronum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keep_Calm_And_Expecto_Patronum), [Drarryismymuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hatchersn/pseuds/Drarryismymuse), and [OllieMaye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OllieMaye) for all of their help with this fic. They volunteered so much of their time and their comments and suggestions kept me going and helped me get to the point where I actually don't think this story sucks! Any remaining mistakes are my own.

Draco took a sip of his water and rearranged the cutlery in front of him in a nervous gesture, lining the collection of silverware up so that they were perfectly straight. He’d been waiting here for the better part of thirty minutes now and the waiter was starting to give him pitying looks, obviously assuming that Draco had been stood up for a date and was just too proud to admit defeat.

“Can I refill your water?”

Draco looked up to see the supercilious waiter smiling down at him with a large pitcher of ice water in his hand. Draco nodded his head and the waiter filled his glass once more.

“May I please have another lemon wedge?” Draco asked, and the waiter walked off to retrieve it.

Just then, a tall, beautiful, blonde woman walked into the restaurant and Draco watched as she exchanged a few words with the hostess before she was pointed in his direction. Sitting up, he straightened his tie and brushed back his signature pale hair, that was just on this side of white, behind his ears.

“Crap on a cracker! I’m so late!” the woman exclaimed as she arrived at the table. Draco stood to greet her, holding his hand out for her to shake, but the woman ignored the gesture and instead stepped in and gave him an air kiss above each of his cheeks before settling down in the chair to Draco’s left.

Draco smiled kindly at her before taking his seat once more just as the waiter returned with his lemon wedge. The man displayed no subtlety at all as his eyes travelled over the woman’s body, which was clad in a form-fitting purple dress with a plunging neckline that put two of her assets on very flattering display. The colour of the dress complemented her complexion to perfection, and her skin was bronzed with a late summer tan.

“I’ll just give you two a few minutes to check out the menu,” the waiter said before winking at Draco and walking away. Draco suppressed the eye roll that threatened to escape at the waiter’s assumed comradeship with him; Draco would be far more inclined to bend the waiter, with his bubble bum that was practically begging for someone to bite into, over this table than he would the attractive woman seated beside him.

If Draco hadn’t already known that she was from Canada, her accent would have given her away. “I’m so sorry I’m late! My sister was always telling me that I was pathological in my lateness. She said I would somehow manage to be late to my own funeral one day.” A look of sadness swept over her features before she chased it away and smiled at Draco.

“It’s no trouble at all, Mrs Saylor,” Draco assured her. “I haven’t been waiting for very long.”

The woman studied him for a moment before the corner of her mouth pulled up in a knowing smirk. “Liar.”

They chuckled together and Draco found that he felt an affinity to the woman, her bumbling exterior a clever ruse to hide her cunning. Draco picked up the menus that had been left for them when he first arrived and handed one to her before opening his own. Truthfully, he had already read through the menu at least ten times while waiting for her to arrive and had decided on the coq au vin, but he thought it impolite to remind her of her tardiness, especially since he really needed to make a good impression on it.

“Mmmm, the coq au vin sounds tasty!” the woman cooed as she scanned the menu and Draco smiled to himself, hidden from view behind his menu.

“I’ve heard their scallops with spinach and parmesan risotto is also heavenly,” Draco suggested.

The woman flipped the menu closed with a decisive gesture and set it aside. “The risotto it is then!”

When Draco closed his own menu, the waiter appeared promptly, obviously having been watching their table eagerly. “Are we ready to order?” he asked, his focus entirely on Draco’s dining companion.

“Yes, I’ll have the scallops with spinach and parmesan risotto, please,” the woman ordered as she handed the menu back to the waiter. “And for dessert, I’ll have the salted caramel crème brûlée.” Turning to Draco, she said, “Life’s too short to not have dessert, but if I wait to order until after I’ve eaten, I will have talked myself out of the need for it. This way, I will simply have to make room when it arrives.”

Draco chuckled as the waiter wrote down her order. “And to drink?”

“A bottle of your most expensive vintage,” she proclaimed in a pretentious voice as she waved her hand in the air. Draco’s heart leapt into his throat at her words; there was no way he would be able to afford such extravagance anymore, but he put on a strong face, not wanting to appear cheap in front of a potential benefactor. Besides, didn’t they always say you had to spend money to make money? He would just have to cut back on his expenses this month to cover the cost. When she turned to look at him, her brows drew together before her face melted into a relaxed smile. “Relax, Mr Malfoy! Dinner is on me.”

The waiter turned to him and asked, “And for you,  _ sir _ ?” The emphasis on the last word dripping with judgement about whether the honorific was actually deserved. 

“The coq au vin for me. And I’m fine with just the water,” Draco bit out at the waiter that was getting more and more obnoxious as the minutes went by. Even that arse of his wasn’t enough to compensate for his grating personality.

“Bring two glasses for the wine,” his companion added before the waiter disappeared to deliver their orders to the kitchen. “I can’t believe you ordered the coq au vin! You’re terrible!” she accused jokingly.

Draco shrugged, unrepentant. “This way we can try both and we both get the best of both worlds.”

“We’ve only just met and already you’re manipulating me. I’d better be careful or you’ll use that silver tongue of yours to talk me out of my entire fortune.” She winked flirtatiously at him as she took a slow sip of water. Draco could see the pink tip of her tongue grazing the rim of the expensive cut crystal water glass.

“I don’t think there’s a silver tongue big enough for that, Mrs Saylor,” Draco said, trying to tread a fine line between being friendly without encouraging her flirtation.

“A girl can dream, can’t she? And please, call me Hope,” she said. Draco wasn’t sure what to do with her innuendo-laced statement, but fortunately, she moved past it herself. “And of course you’re right. My ex-husband was obscenely wealthy; he made his fortune in the oil fields, and thanks to his inability to keep his dick in his pants, I walked away with half.”

“I’m sorry,” Draco offered, unsure what to say to that kind of personal information.

“Well, that makes one of us, because I’m most certainly not! I’m well shot of him.” She seemed to be scrutinising Draco and he wasn’t sure whether she expected him to say anything or not. Fortunately for him, she saved him from the predicament. “What do you say to getting the business out of the way so that we can enjoy our meals once they arrive?”

“My experience has always been that a full stomach often accompanies a loose wallet,” Draco said smoothly, earning a tinkling laugh from Hope.

“I love your unique brand of dry humour,” she said, shaking her head at Draco but with an amused look on her face. “You’re very funny. I can see why the kids love you.”

“Sadly, the kids don’t actually find me all that funny,” Draco said, face lighting up at the thoughts of the children that he had become so fond of.

“Somehow I doubt that,” Hope said. “I haven’t had a chance to look over all the financials yet, but I have it on good authority that you are one of the most popular counsellors in the program.”

Draco smirked. “That’s only because I let them get away with saying ‘arse’ in front of me.”

Hope threw her head back and laughed. “Just imagine how popular you would be if you let them say ‘Fuck’ as well!”

“I’d have shrines built in my honour, I’m sure.”

“I’ll bet!” Hope laughed before sobering and drilling him with a focused look, crossing her hands in her lap with her elbows propped on the armrests of the chair. “ Now, why don’t you tell me a little bit about your charity?”

“The Good Faith Outreach Centre was started six years ago,” Draco began before reaching down into the patent leather briefcase he brought with him to pull out the background information packet he compiled for her in preparation for their meeting. “We offer a variety of programmes and after-school activities for children that focus on building empathy, teamwork, and communication skills. We have a year-round sports programme that runs a variety of teams in league sports and a tutoring program.”

They also had several programmes that were geared towards teaching magical children about Muggle customs and technology, but donations for that program were garnered from wizarding world donations, so he didn’t mention those to her. Draco had decided to dedicate his life to making sure magical children had the opportunity to learn about Muggles that he was denied when he was a small boy. Children’s minds were so impressionable and malleable and he didn’t want to see the same toxic prejudices that had infected him in his youth cultivated in the next generations. Having programs that included both wizarding and Muggle children presented certain difficulties, especially around maintaining the Statute of Secrecy, but the risk to the Statute was far outweighed by the risks of prejudice and racism continuing to be cultivated amongst the pure-blood families.

Hope was nodding her head as she listened to Draco’s spiel and looked interested. Taking a deep breath to quell his nerves, Draco launched into his pitch, “Our next goal is to expand and implement a music programme. Lots of the children have expressed an interest in learning to play an instrument, but unfortunately, the startup costs for it are quite steep and that’s what we’re hoping you’d be interested in donating to.”

“I see,” Hope said, her voice flat for a moment before it broke and a small gasping sound escaped. Her lips thinned and she averted her face. Draco wasn’t sure what he had said that had upset her so much, but he felt terrible. Without being too obvious about it, he offered her one of the spare napkins, which she took without a word. Draco took a sip of his lemon-flavoured water and averted his eyes while she composed herself.

“Gah! Sorry about that!” she cried. “My sister loved music and used to be a music teacher.”

“How long ago did she pass?” Draco asked carefully. It was obvious from the woman’s reactions that she’d lost her sister. That was a pain Draco could relate to.

“It will have been nine years now,” Hope whispered in a quiet voice. “At least, as far as I know. She disappeared and I never knew exactly what happened to her. One day she was here and the next...she was just gone.”

Draco cleared his throat before taking another sip of his water, fighting back the barrage of memories that loomed in his mind like an ever-present threat, as if they were just waiting for the dam to break.

“You’d think it would get easier,” Hope said as she stared out the window at the busy street traffic taking advantage of the sunny heat of the July afternoon. “And it does, I suppose. I can go days at a time now and function almost as if I’m a normal human being, like there isn’t a huge gaping hole in my chest that nothing can fill, but then something will remind me of her and it’s like it was just yesterday that I spoke to her last.”

“I know how you feel,” Draco commiserated.

Hope turned to look at him and he watched as her grief played clear as day across her features. “You couldn’t possibly know how I feel,” she stated flatly. Before Draco could say anything, Hope shook her head a few times and carefully ran her fingers along her lower eyelid, wiping away the last remnants of her tears. “Enough of that self-pity! All we can do now is try to move on and do what needs to be done. How much money do you need to get this music programme of yours off the ground?”

Draco bit the inside of his lip, feeling like he was taking advantage of her when she was feeling vulnerable. “We don’t have to discuss this now,” he offered.

“How much?” she asked resolutely.

Draco watched her nervously, but a business-like mask had taken over her face and she stared intently at him, waiting for his answer. Her eyes were still ringed in red, but aside from that, she looked business-like. “We’ll have to buy all the musical instruments and set up a regular rental for a practice space, hire some musical instructors and—”

“How much?” she insisted.

“We figured that we should be able to get everything up and running for the first year with £25k.”

“£25k for one year, you said?” she asked as she reached into her small silver clutch and pulled out a cheque book.

“That’s right,” Draco confirmed, heart racing at the sign that she may have agreed to sponsor their project. He watched as the beautiful—and expensive—fountain pen scratched across the surface of the paper; he may no longer have a vault full of gold, but he still appreciated the finger things, and that pen could probably cover a week’s worth of salary of one of his counsellors. He held his breath as she carefully tore the perforated slip of paper out of the book and tucked it back into her purse.

“Then this should see you through at least four years,” she said casually as she held out the thin slip of paper for Draco, who sat frozen in shock.

Unbelieving, he reached out and took the cheque with trembling fingers. He was in such a daze that it took him a second to register the touch on his forearm.

“What an interesting tattoo.”

Draco fought the urge to yank his arm back. He usually kept his Dark Mark covered but the late July heatwave that had been plaguing London for the last week had finally broken down his resolve. If he’d been meeting with a witch or wizard, he could have cast a Cooling Charm on himself without drawing any scrutiny, but he didn’t want to risk it knowing that he would be meeting with a Muggle this afternoon. The heat had been stifling enough that he had finally relented and rolled up the sleeves of his button-up.

“It’s quite dark, isn’t it?” Hope asked. Her fingers felt icy cold against his skin as she trailed them over the faded red lines of the skull and down the hissing serpent. He shivered, goose pimples breaking out on his body at her touch; he rarely let anyone see the visual reminder of the weakness and naivety that had lead to his enslavement by a madman, let alone touch it. “What does it represent?”

“The foolishness of youth,” Draco answered, the words not a lie but nowhere near the truth either.

Hope slipped her hand back to her side of the table and smiled kindly at him. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, it’s fine, really,” Draco rushed to assure her. “I just...I don’t like thinking about that time of my life.”

“I can appreciate that,” Hope said, her brows drawing together as she studied him. After a few moments of consideration, she continued, “We all have things from our past that we’d rather not face.”

“What about you?” Draco asked. “What are you trying to avoid?”

The serious look on her face lasted for a few more seconds before her expression cleared and she pasted on a smile. “Oh me? I made the ill-advised decision to get a  _ perm _ right before my graduation ceremony.”

Draco gave her a small smile, grateful for the change of topic. He wasn’t keen to spill his darkest moments to someone he’d just met either. “I can tell you one thing you won’t regret: supporting our new music programme.”

Draco held up the tiny slip of paper that symbolised so much potential and joy and Hope laughed. “I’m sure I won’t.”

“What’s your sister’s name? We’ll name the program in her honour,” Draco offered, thinking it was the least he could do for this guardian angel that was single-handedly providing this amazing opportunity for countless children.

“There’s no need for that.” Hope shook her head, a strange emotion that Draco couldn’t identify flitting across her face. “I’ve always found it tacky when rich people plaster their names all over everything. I’d prefer that this donation remain anonymous.”

“Are you sure?” Draco asked as he tucked the cheque into a pocket in his briefcase.

“Absolutely. Charity is most satisfying when it is for charity’s sake,” she declared.

Just then, the obnoxious waiter returned with their order. Once he had ensured the wine was to her liking and had sprinkled their plates with freshly ground pepper—and had snuck several more covert glances at Hope’s decolletage—he departed once more.

“I do have one request, however…” she began, trailing off.

“Anything you want,” Draco said.

“Anything?” she asked coquettishly, eyelashes fluttering.

Draco smirked. “Within reason.”

Hope donned a faux pout for a few seconds before reaching over and grabbing one of the unused bread plates. “I demand a taste of that coq au vin.”


	2. Ron

“I’m hungry.”

“So then eat something.” Ron shrugged, not looking up from the chessboard where his game with Harry was just starting to get interesting.

“Are you not charged with my safety and well-being while I await my testimony in front of the Wizengamot?” the snotty wizard asked.

“Yes. And?” Ron asked, eyes still fixed on the board.

“Well starving me half to death is most certainly not looking out for my well-being, is it?” Ron grudgingly looked up to see the middle-aged wizard staring at them both with his arms crossed across his chest. His round belly was practically a shelf holding his arms up, and Ron thought it would take more than a late meal to starve this man to death.

“You know where the kitchen is.” Ron returned his attention back to the board, where Harry was just moving his rook. Harry probably thought that he would have Ron in checkmate in six moves, but unfortunately for Harry, Ron would have him in four.

There was an indignant squawk from their witness. Not for the first time, Ron wished that they were out in the field and not cooped up in this tiny bolthole. He still thought that he and Harry would be better used out chasing down members of the Just Blood Alliance, or JBA, but Robards had assigned them to babysitting duty instead.

He and Harry had been locked up in this DMLE safehouse for five days now and Ron thought that they just might be the most boring five days he’d had since they had joined the Aurors seven years ago. The wizard they were protecting, a nervous quill-pusher by the name of Charles Westenberg, had maintained the books for the JBA and had agreed to become a turncoat. At least they only had two more days cooped up in here; he was due to testify about his knowledge of the group’s resources and to name whatever members he was aware of in exchange for leniency from the Wizengamot.

Although the Just Blood Alliance had been active for several years, slowly building in prominence following the conclusion of the Second Wizarding War, it wasn’t until the past year that they had warranted the DMLE’s attention. They advocated for the elimination of blood statuses within the wizarding world and the stripping of the ‘Sacred Twenty-Eights’ political and social influence.

Originally gaining supporters among members of the wizarding world who were disappointed by the leniency granted to people who had been complicit with the Death Eaters, in the last year a more radical cell had splintered off from the main group, referring to themselves as the Just Blood Army. No longer satisfied with lobbying Ministers and protesting in the atrium of the Ministry during trials, the Army was now taking “justice” into their own hands. They had already launched successful attacks against three Death Eater associates that had been released on parole, killing all three.

Kingsley Shacklebolt, as Minister of Magic, was under a lot of pressure from the wizarding society of the United Kingdom. Unfortunately for Kingsley, the wizarding world was pretty evenly split on whether JBA and the Army were dangerous vigilantes or whether they were finally taking the action that the Wizengamot were too weak—or corrupt—to do themselves. Kingsley was catching flak from all sides and, as they say, shit always rolls downhill; he had made it clear that if anyone so much as sneezed in Charles Westenberg’s direction, the Aurors guarding him were expected to take the bogey spray themselves.

Westenberg made a disgruntled noise and Ron rolled his eyes at Harry, who stifled a laugh before pushing his chair back and standing up. “I’m a little peckish too, so I’ll make us something. Besides, you always win when we play chess anyway.”

Ron grinned. Despite the innumerable chess matches they’d played over the years, Harry had only managed to defeat Ron a handful of times. “I had you in four.”

Harry gave him a fond look. “Why am I not surprised? You two relax and I’ll call you when supper is ready.”

Westenberg settled back onto the couch and opened the book he’d been reading. Ron was just debating getting up to scan the bookshelf for something to read himself when he heard a soft creaking sound coming from down the hallway. The other man jumped, his head whipping back and forth between Ron and the dark hallway. “What was that?” he squeaked.

“Shhh,” Ron hissed as he pulled out his wand and began tiptoeing towards the source of the sound. “Stay here.”

Ron had only gone a few steps down the dark hallway, foregoing a Lumos charm in the hopes of surprising any potential invader, when someone crashed into him from behind. “I told you to stay back!” he barked in a harsh whisper, shaking Westenberg’s grip off his wand arm.

“And just wait around for someone to kill me while both of my assigned bodyguards buggered off and left me unprotected? Not bloody likely,” the man protested in a fear-infused rush.

Ron took a long, steadying breath, pushing it out through flared nostrils. “Fine. Stay close, but stay behind me.”

Westenberg nodded and then ducked down so that Ron could just barely see him as he looked over his shoulder. Ron made his way slowly step-by-step down the hallway, listening for any suspicious sounds over the panting breaths of the man crouched behind him. If Westenberg kept that up for much longer, he was liable to faint from lack of oxygen.

Ron had just pulled up so that his shoulder was level with the bedroom door and was reaching out for the doorknob when an explosive bang came from behind them. Ron whirled around to see a thick cloud of smoke and detritus in the air seconds before several masked figures appeared.

“ _ Homenum Revello _ !”

Ron had only seconds before the attacker’s spell alerted them to their position and one of the masked figures turned towards them, wand arm swinging around. The last thing Ron wanted to do was leave Harry alone, but he knew what he had to do: he had to protect the witness. Ron sent up a quick prayer to Merlin that Harry would be able to fight them off until reinforcements arrived before casting the Auror Distress Charm, grabbing Westenberg’s arm, and Apparating them both away from there.

The last thing he saw before he and Westenberg spun out of place was a bright green flash of light.

They landed in the middle of the Ministry’s Atrium with a sharp crack and he immediately lost his balance as Westenberg fell into him. Ron fell to the ground with the other man’s weight bearing down on him. Pushing himself up until the other man rolled off him, Ron turned over and looked down to see the glassy, vacant stare of Westenberg’s lifeless face looking back at him.

“Fuck!” he hollered, causing several milling witches and wizards to jump and turn towards him. A growing echo of whispers bounced off the tall walls of the Atrium as he scrambled to his feet. He ignored the distressed witnesses around him as he began pushing his way through the crowd towards the lift: he had to get help for Harry!

As he watched, the lift doors slid open and a number of familiar faces rushed out.

“Weasley! What are you doing here?” Robards barked out.

“Safehouse was attacked. Harry needs backup!” Ron rushed out, every word feeling like a potential nail in Harry’s coffin.

“Aaaagggghhhhh! He’s dead!” A high-pitched scream came from behind him as the initial shock of their appearance wore off and people began to realise that something was horribly wrong.

Robards’s eyes scanned Ron and darted over to the area where Ron had left Westenberg’s body. He nodded brusquely before barking out orders to the Aurors that poured out of the lift behind him. “Kirk, Benton, Smythe, you three take the safehouse. Latham and Martin, clear the Atrium and get the witness to St Mungo’s.”

Ron was just about to Apparate back to the safehouse when Robards clapped a strong grip on his arm. “Weasley, you stay here. I want to know what the fuck happened over there.”

Ron felt a swell of indignation explode within him. “You can’t be serious! There’s no fucking way I’m leaving Harry out there!”

“Get a grip on yourself, Weasley. You may be one of the ‘ _ Golden Trio’ _ , but that doesn’t mean that I will tolerate insubordination,” Robards barked out angrily.

“Chief! I need to be there. It’s  _ Harry _ ,” Ron insisted, wondering if he could shake off the vise-like grip that his boss still had on his arm. How could Robards even consider not letting Ron go and help his best friend and partner?

“Exactly, you’re too close. You’re more likely to act reckless and potentially put yourself into danger. I’ve sent three of my best Aurors. They’ll do everything they can for him. They’ll bring him back. But I need you here right now. I need to know what happened and it’s best to do that while it’s fresh.”

Robards began pulling Ron towards the bank of lifts while Ron resisted him. Just then, a wispy silver-white frog drifted down from street level and hopped up to Robards. When the figure’s mouth opened, the croaky voice of Auror Benton emerged, “Assailants were gone when we arrived, but we found Potter. He’s unconscious but alive. Kirk’s taking him to St Mungo’s and Smythe and I will secure the scene.”

Ron felt tension he wasn’t even aware of release from his muscles and he stopped resisting Robards’s intent tug on his arm. Ron stumbled after the other man for a few steps and then he began shaking. It began in his hands, small tremors working their way up his fingers and creeping up his arms until his vision became blurry.

“Steady on.”

Ron felt a strong arm encircle his waist while his own was pulled across Robards’s shoulder. The support came just in the nick of time as his legs gave out from beneath him. He may as well have been hit with a Jelly-Legs Jinx for all the good his legs were doing him right now.

Robards managed to steer Ron’s dead-weight body over to one of the stiff, wooden benches lining the wall of the Atrium and eased him down to sit on it. Ron, who had begun to take in sharp, quick panting breaths, briefly registered that the Atrium was now empty before a hand on his neck was pushing his head forward.

“Head between your knees, that’s it. This will pass soon.” Robards’s hand slipped down from Ron’s neck to draw wide, soothing circles on his back. Once this moment of panic had passed, Ron would probably burn up with embarrassment that his boss had witnessed him showing this much weakness, but for now, the motion was helping him to relax.

After about ten minutes, Ron sat up and took a few deep breaths, wiping his damp eyes with the heels of his hands. “Please, sir, I have to go to St Mungo’s.”

“I already sent a Patronus to Kirk. He will send me back a status update on Potter every thirty minutes. If you go there now, you’ll just drive yourself crazy pacing the waiting room. Give the Healers space to do their job while you do yours. The sooner we can gather your memories from tonight, the more reliable they’ll be. I know it feels impossible, but I need you to be Auror Weasley right now, not Harry Potter’s best friend.”

Ron wanted to scream. He wanted to scream and shout and spit in Robards’s face. He wanted to call him a heartless bastard and walk out. But he didn’t. He knew that Harry—his best friend and the bravest man he’d ever known—would want Ron to do what needed to be done. And so, Ron took a few extra moments to push down all that rage that was threatening to consume him, to burn him alive from the inside, and he nodded, not trusting himself to speak just yet.

The lift doors were just sliding closed when a goshawk Patronus flapped into the cramped lift with an update on Harry. “Potter is stable but still unconscious. Healers have him in stasis while they work on healing his internal injuries.” Message delivered, the Patronus dissipated.

Ron spent the next hour explaining in minute detail every minute of their evening, scraping his memory for anything that seemed even remotely out of place as he walked Robards through his memories in the department’s Pensieve. The only reprieve was the two Patronuses that arrived to give them updates on how Harry was doing, but they offered little solace as the only updates they carried was that the Healers were still working on him. Finally, Robards seemed to exhaust his seemingly endless supply of questions and they pulled back from the basin.

“Are we done? Can I go to the hospital now?” Ron asked desperately. The Patronus updates had helped calm him and given him the strength he needed to tuck away his fears about Harry for the time being, but his patience was starting to fray.

“We’re done here. When Potter wakes up, let him know he’s under a direct order from me to take it easy,” Robards instructed, giving Ron a sympathetic look. “And I want you to take the next few days off.”

“But sir, you’re going to need all hands on deck to catch these guys!” Ron protested.

The Head of the Auror office held his hand up. “What I need is my people performing at peak performance. You’ve just had a very close call and you need some time to get your head wrapped around that.”

“But—”

“I don’t want to hear any arguments, Weasley. I don’t want to see you in this office again for a week, you got that?” Robards punctuated his words with a stern look that made it clear that there was no point in arguing.

And besides, Ron didn’t want to stand here arguing anymore. He wanted to get over to St Mungo’s and finally see, for his own eyes, that his best friend for the last fifteen years was going to be okay.

“Fine. I’ll be in first thing on Monday morning,” Ron stated over his shoulder as he rushed out of the room, not waiting to hear Robards protest. Ron rushed down the hallway and pounded the call button for the lift. He chewed nervously on his thumbnail as he waited for what felt like a thousand years for one of the torturously slow lift cars to finally arrive and slide open. He promptly climbed in and pressed the button for the Atrium before attacking the button to hurry the closing of the doors.

When the lift deposited him on the Atrium level, Ron loped over to one of the Floos and grabbed a handful of the fine, black powder before stepping into the oversized fireplace. “St Mungos Emergency,” he spoke clearly before he threw the handful of powder down at his feet and was sucked up into the Floo network.

Stepping out into the reception area of St Mungos, Ron rushed over to the large reception desk where there were three harried mediwizards dictating notes to self-writing quills.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for—” Ron began asking the nearest mediwizard where Harry was but the man held up one finger to Ron without looking up from the parchment in front of him.

Ron stared, slack-jawed, at the wizard in the revolting lime-coloured robes before a wave of anger rushed over him and his face steeled into a look that even the most foolish of wizards would steer a wide berth around. With icy-cold determination, Ron reached over and snatched the stiff, blue feather quill out of the air and snapped it in two.

“Hey! You can’t—oh! Mr Weasley! I didn’t realise it was you.” The mediwizard’s face flushed when he finally took notice of who was standing in front of him. It had been eight years since the Second Wizarding War and Ron still had trouble wrapping it around his brain that people would look at him with awe like this. Rather than being flattered like he often felt when someone was so obviously impressed by his sheer presence in their vicinity, Ron felt nothing but annoyance and scorn for the wizard in front of it.

“So if I hadn’t been one-third of the ‘Golden Trio’, then it would have been totally fine for you to ignore me when I am just trying to get information about a loved one?” Ron spat. The wizard flushed an even deeper shade of puce and looked like he was about to object to Ron’s accusation, but he didn’t give him the opportunity. “Where is Harry Potter?”

The wizard tentatively pointed down a hallway to the left, avoiding Ron’s incendiary glare. “Regen Department, room C.”

Ron didn’t bother to thank the wizard. Instead, he dropped the two halves of the quill onto the desk, a petty satisfaction shooting through him when a large blotch of ink sullied the parchment that was lying there, and stalked off down the hallway. As he drew closer to the end of the hallway, a figure stepped away from the wall and Ron recognized his fellow Auror.

“The Healer’s still in there with him,” Kirk informed him. Ron didn’t even break his stride as he stepped around Kirk and pushed his way into the room.

He was halfway into the room before his brain caught up with his feet and he slammed to a halt, registering the presence in the room far too late. The curly-haired witch lifted her head, her melted chocolate eyes sucking all the air out of the room.

“Hello, Ron.” Two simple words, but they sliced through him.

“Hi, Hermione.”


	3. Draco

“I don’t know...it just doesn’t feel  _ right _ ,” Draco said as he walked around the large, empty room, scrutinizing the ceiling.

“What else were you thinking of?” the realtor asked, her professional demeanour masking any irritation she may be feeling after showing Draco ten commercial spaces now. The woman was like a smiling version of a Beefeater guard, the friendly look on her face unwavering even under difficult circumstances. The impish part of Draco was tempted to see how far he could push her before the veneer cracked on her customer service-approved smile. “Is there something in particular you’re looking for?”

“Nothing too clinical,” Draco said, eyeing the cream-painted brick walls and linoleum-covered floors that were making him feel like he was in a vacated ward of St Mungo’s. “Something with good light.”

It had been several weeks since Draco had held his breath in the Muggle bank while the clerk had verified there were sufficient funds to cash the cheque. When the teller had smiled broadly at him and stamped the cheque, Draco sat in shock until the woman had given him a concerned look and he’d remembered to start breathing again. Since that day, he had spent every spare moment he had sorting out the practicalities of the new music programme. He had managed to negotiate a respectable discount on the instruments, had ordered a variety of sheet music to start them out with, and had begun interviewing prospective instructors.

Unfortunately, finding an acceptable practice space was proving difficult. Now that he had secured funding for several years, Draco had already begun thinking ahead to future possibilities and he wanted a space that could be used for art classes as well as music.

The realtor took a few notes on a pad of paper in her conference folder before putting the pen away and zipping it up, tucking the faux leather folder under her arm. “Alright, well I think we’ve done as much as we can today. Why don’t you give me a few days to gather together some more possibilities and we can try again early next week?”

Draco agreed and they retreated towards the door to the unit, which was at the top of a tall flight of stairs that led down to street level. Draco waited patiently while the realtor locked the unit up again and they made their way down the stairs. He held the door open for her and they stepped out into the warm, early September evening.

Turning towards the realtor, Draco held out his hand to her. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you.”

She smiled confidently at him as she took his hand and shook it. “Don’t worry, this is all part of the process. We’ll find you the perfect space to make beautiful music.”

“I’m sure you will,” Draco agreed as they both withdrew their hands and the woman turned and began walking away from him down the bustling commercial street. He returned the gesture as she turned around and waved before getting swallowed up by the crowd.

Looking up and down the street, Draco decided that it was far too busy to disapparate and, besides, he could use a good, stiff drink. He chuckled to himself as he thought that that wasn’t the only thing he could use a good, stiff version of, but sadly there wasn’t much chance of that. He had to think for a while when he tried to recount the last time he’d had sex, finally realising that it had been at least a five-month sexual drought.

Since the war, Draco had dabbled in a few romances and dalliances of varied lengths and qualities, but nothing had lasted for long. He had tried dating wizards, but even eight years later the Malfoy name was a dealbreaker for most wizards—and too much of an appeal for a handful of others. After one wizard that he had been dating quietly for several months had confided to him that he would like to act out a fantasy that he was the Dark Lord and Draco was one of his ardent followers that would do  _ anything _ to curry his Lord’s favour, Draco had sworn off dating wizards—and had revised his opinion of Hufflepuffs.

Ever since that relationship had fizzled out faster than a candle blasted by an  _ Aguamenti _ , Draco had restricted his dating sphere to Muggles. There had been a few that had lasted a couple of weeks, a few more that had only been good for a handful of dates, and there’d been a scattering of men that had only provided a couple of hours of ephemeral pleasure.

His last had been Brady, who he’d dated for a few weeks before Draco had ended it. Though they were the same age by the calendar, their life experiences left a huge gap in their maturity levels. Brady was in his mid-twenties and at the height of his sexuality and for him, hardship and loss was a foreign concept. He was always telling Draco that he needed to “lighten up” and “have fun” and the more times Draco had heard that same refrain, the starker the differences between them became. Draco’s sense of self had been tempered in the flames of war and that was something that Brady could not relate to.

Brady had tried to talk Draco out of it, had pleaded that he loved him and that they could work it out. Draco had listened, had tried to remain sympathetic and supportive, but he knew that it was just empty words. A bored individual creating drama for the sake of drama. He’d held strong and walked away from Brady that night and, as he’d suspected, Brady’s words had proved hollow: it was only ten days later that Draco had logged onto his computer to find that Brady had gallivanted off to Saint-Tropez with a rich sugar-daddy.

Draco had scrolled through the pictures, waiting to be flooded with a wash of jealousy or outrage but that hadn’t happened. Truth was, he hadn’t felt much of anything; it was as if he was looking at pictures of a stranger. He had sent Brady a quick congratulatory message and had logged off and that was the last thought he had spared for Brady until today.

His thoughts seemed to have steered his body because he found himself turning the corner onto a familiar street. Draco looked up to see the glowing neon sign of Lucky’s, one of a few Muggle bars that Draco frequented. If he was in the mood to shed all of his worries on the dance floor, he would head to Celebrities. If he was looking for a quick, anonymous fumble, the Red Door never failed to deliver. Lucky’s was a much more mellow atmosphere, where the music was kept low enough that you could still hear what your date was saying, but the lighting was low enough that it granted a feeling of privacy. Plus, they served one hell of a perfect martini.

Casting a quick glance to the left, Draco stepped out from between two parked cars and jogged across the street to enter the bar. By no means a regular, the bartender did give him a faint head nod that suggested that she remembered him. Scanning the dark bar, Draco settled on a wooden table for two near the front of the bar and sat with his hands clasped together on the table until the waiter made his way over to him.

“Cheers. What can I get for you?” The cute brunette smiled down at him, his black button-up shirt unbuttoned just enough for a small glimpse of chest hair to emerge.

Draco smiled up at the man, letting his eyes slide down the waiter’s trim frame; he was tall and his eyes took the scenic route. “The only thing I want—that’s on the menu anyway—is a perfect martini.”

“You got it,” the waiter said as he winked flirtatiously at him before walking away, giving Draco a fantastic view of his arse in tight denims.

While Draco waited for his drink, he perused the other patrons of the bar. There were two older burly men at the bar—what the Muggles liked to call ‘bears’—talking boisterously with each other between swigs of their pale beers. One man was sitting alone at one of the booths, the table empty other than a laptop open in front of him, the screen casting ghoulish blue shadows over his face. Draco watched, amazed, as the man’s fingertips danced rhythmically over the keys with practised ease. Draco had made huge strides in his familiarity with Muggle electronics over the years—he had quickly discovered that having no familiarity with them at all was something that drew suspicion—but his typing skills were still stuck at two-fingered pecking motions.

The man’s fingers came to an abrupt halt and Draco looked up to find the man staring at him, expression unreadable. The man’s black hair was on the long side, brushed over to the side on top and hanging down over his forehead and one eye. Draco offered him a tentative smile but it only earned him a scowl from the other man, his upper lip lifting on one side in a decidedly unfriendly look.

Clearing his throat, uneasy from the man’s hostile look, Draco was relieved when the waiter returned with his martini. The man set it down, resting it on a small square napkin and Draco looked up gratefully at him.

“I hope that’s to your liking, stud,” the waiter purred suggestively as he leaned down, bringing his face close enough so that Draco could hear him over the music. “Both things.”

Draco didn’t have a chance to ask what he meant before the man departed with another flirty wink. Draco stared after the man, eyes flicking over to the angry typist to find him still scowling, before turning his attention to the drink in front of him. What he thought at first glance to be a design printed on the napkin turned out to be a message to him written in a compact hand:

_ It’s fine if you call me easy, as long as you call me! _

_ 020 7946 0735 _

Draco carefully folded the napkin and tucked it into the front pocket of his shirt before taking a sip of his drink, which was perfect in every sense of the word: the lemon twist gave the drink a refreshing, bright smell as the gin and vermouth swept over his tongue.

Draco sat in solitude for a while, running through the list of things he still needed to do for the music programme in his head; he added on contracting someone to whip up a logo to the list of things to do.

“How’s the martini? Do you want another?” Draco was pulled from his ruminations by the reappearance of the frisky waiter.

Hastily swallowing down the bitter mouthful he’d just taken, Draco coughed lightly a few times before shaking his head. “No, no. I’m good, thanks. But, uh, thanks,” Draco reached in and pulled out the napkin, tucked between two of his long fingers, “for this.”

The waiter rested one hand on his hip, cocking it out a bit. “Does that mean you’re going to use it?”

Draco tucked the napkin back into his pocket and patted his hand against his chest a couple of times. “You can count on it.”

The waiter gave him a bright smile and rested his hand on Draco’s bicep. “Clever man.”

Draco finished the rest of his drink while watching the last two occupants of the bar, two young men, probably a few years younger than Draco was, who looked like they were on a date. Their body language was clearly communicating that they were both thrilled to be sitting at the small table together. Rather than sitting across from each other, they were sitting in adjoining seats, and they seemed physically incapable of keeping their hands to themselves: a quick drop of a head onto a shoulder, a finger trailed up a bare forearm, a runaway strand of hair brushed off the face.

The blond man’s hair was closer to a strawberry shade than Draco’s own, but it didn’t stop Draco from fantasising idly that he was in the man’s place. His companion had dark auburn hair, long and held back in a loose ponytail at his nape, wisps of thin, red hair framing his face. The stray thought that the man looked vaguely like one of the innumerable Weasley clan, shattering the fantasy he had been enjoying.

He must really be getting desperate if a Weasley look-alike could get him going. Though...the elder Weasley brothers had always been surprisingly sexy, especially that one that raised dragons. Draco was ashamed to admit that he’d definitely let that Weasley ride him.

Laughing to himself, he pulled out his wallet and left a generous tip—hopefully that would work to his advantage when he called the sexy waiter later. Weaving his way through the tables, Draco made his way to the loos and into one of the stalls. He had barely gotten the door closed behind him when a creaking noise told him someone else had entered the bathroom. Draco paid no attention at first, but instead of the metallic rustling of zippers being undone, the only thing he could hear was the slow, heavy sound of footsteps.

As he watched, two heavy, black boots came into view between the floor and the walls of the stalls. A creeping chill of fear began crawling up Draco’s body and he backed up, stumbling and falling onto the seat of the toilet. The bar had been relatively empty, it still being only late afternoon, and it was just he and this silent man in the loo together. Draco suddenly had the paranoid thought that if he were attacked, he didn’t know whether anyone would come to his aid.

Draco held his breath as the heavy footfalls continued across the echoing linoleum of the lavatory until they came to a stop in front of his stall. With painful slowness, the boots turned to face the stall door.

Nothing happened for a long time, the moment stretching out until it was brittle, moments from shattering. Draco couldn’t help the terrified yelp that was wrenched out of him when the metallic wall of the stalls rattled, a small strip of metal the only thing preventing the door from crashing inwards.

“Occupied,” Draco squeaked, voice high and thready with fear, breath sawing in and out of him.

“I know who you are. I know what you’ve done.” The voice was deep and guttural, speaking in a slow, measured pace. “You may have avoided Azkaban, but there’s no escaping judgment.”

Draco squeezed his eyes shut and curled into himself, hands covering his ears to try and block out the cold anger in the voice. He wanted to defend himself, to scream back at the man that he’d changed, that he’d been atoning for the sins of his youth, but he couldn’t push the words past his throat.

He sat there, legs pulled up and curled into a tight ball, blind and deaf to the looming threat, for long minutes until other sounds began to permeate his awareness. He forced one eye open to find the pitch-black boots gone, and when he tentatively lifted his hands away from his ears, the only thing he could hear was two men talking boisterously at the sinks.

Unsure if the coast was clear, Draco reached out and carefully turned the lock on the stall door, careful to not make a sound. Pulling the door open the smallest fraction, Draco peered out and the only other occupants of the lavatory seemed to be the adorable couple from earlier, who were now kissing passionately, one man propped up on the bathroom counter with his legs spread and wrapped around his partner’s waist, holding him close as they kissed.

Not wanting to interrupt their intimate moment, Draco pulled the stall door open the rest of the way and slipped out of the stall, veering straight for the door of the loo. Being back out in the company of other people was a relief but also set his nerves jangling. The bar’s occupancy had doubled in the time that he’d been locked in the loo, afternoon bleeding into evening and revellers pouring out into the night looking for a fun time.

All Draco wanted to do was get out of here and retreat to the privacy and safety of his own apartment. Pushing his way through the bar patrons milling around, Draco spared a quick glance over at the booth to find that the man with the laptop was now gone.


	4. Ron

“You look...good,” Ron offered lamely, immediately cursing himself in his head. This was the first time he’d seen Hermione since they had signed the divorce decree and although he’d run through this conversation in his head about a thousand times in the last nine months, now that it was happening, his brain felt vacuumed of all intelligent thought.

“You look good too, Ron.” Hermione’s ever-observant eyes scanned him for a few seconds before the right side of her mouth lifted in a faint look of amusement. “Though, you could use a haircut.”

Ron bowed his head and ran the fingers of his right hand through his longer-than-usual locks in a self-conscious gesture. Hermione had always been the one that had taken care of making appointments for stuff like that and Ron hadn’t bothered to take care of it regularly now that they weren’t together anymore. After a couple of months of comments about how he was looking more and more like Hagrid, his mother had eventually snapped and plunked him down in the kitchen of the Burrow and shaved his head, but that had been months ago now and his hair was once again dropping down into his eyes.

“Yeah, well...umm…” Ron trailed off, unsure what to say to that. It wasn’t that he actually liked his hair this long; it was a pain in his arse and he was constantly having to sweep it back off his face. But he also didn’t want to let Hermione know just how much he was still struggling without her. “My girlfriend likes it long.”

_ Merlin’s bloody balls! Where the fuck did that come from?! _ Ron fought to keep his face neutral and fight back the urge to slap himself upside the head at his own stupidity. He had no idea why he had said that. The truth was, aside from one disastrous blind date that Percy had set him up on with Cricket—a woman that Penelope worked with whose name proved to be the most interesting thing about her—Ron hadn’t dated anyone since Hermione.

Hermione’s eyes narrowed at Ron’s asinine declaration and he thought he might erupt into flames under the intensity of her scrutiny, but to his immense relief, she looked away and returned her attention to Harry. Holding her wand over Harry’s prone body, she returned to what she’d been doing before he’d come bursting in here to make an arse of himself.

Ron forgot his embarrassing moment of idiocy the second his eyes landed on Harry’s unconscious form. Ron hurried over to the bedside opposite Hermione and took Harry’s unresponsive hand between his two. “How’s he doing?” Ron managed to croak out, the fear and panic from earlier rearing their ugly heads again now that Harry was in front of him.

Ron looked up, startled, when he felt Hermione’s soft touch on his shoulder, her hand offering comfort. Looking into her face, all of the animosity and anger that had been the hallmarks of their relationship near the end were tucked away and all that greeted him was kindness. This wasn’t the Hermione that was his ex—this was the Hermione that was his friend once. This was the Hermione he hoped to get back permanently someday.

“He’s going to be okay, Ron. I promise you that.” Ron nodded at Hermione’s words, swallowing back a sob that wanted to force its way out of him. Turning his attention back to Harry’s unconscious body, Ron began cataloguing all of the visible cuts and bruises as Hermione continued.

“He had pretty extensive internal trauma. He was trapped under a pile of bricks and rubble when they  _ Bombarda _ ’d their way into the house,” Hermione’s voice cracked at that and he heard her sniffle. He gave her time to compose herself while he carefully stroked the hair back on Harry’s head. “We put him into the stasis to give us time to fix some of the damage. We’ve done what we can for him, but there was some damage to his spine, so we’ll have to wait until he wakes up to see whether there’s any lasting damage.”

“He’s paralysed?” Ron choked out, eyes shooting to Hermione with a desperate pleading look in them. Intellectually, he knew that Hermione and the rest of the St Mungo’s staff would have already done every conceivable spell to heal Harry but that didn’t stop Ron from wanting to insist they perform a miracle that would allow his best friend to walk out of here the second he woke up.

Hermione shook her head, but they had been married for five years and you couldn’t be with someone for that long and not know when they were worried. Hermione had a phenomenal poker face but that didn’t mean she didn’t have a tell. Ron’s eyes dropped down to her left hand and watched as she tapped out the pattern, the short nails of each of her fingers just barely digging into the pad of her thumb in rhythmic succession. Hermione was putting on a brave face—as usual—but she wasn’t quite as confident in Harry’s future as she wanted Ron to think.

“Hermione, tell me the truth,” Ron pleaded.

Hermione sighed and her shoulders drooped, some of the strong facade crumbling away. “There’s a very good chance that he’ll make a full recovery after some physical therapy,” Hermione said. Ron watched as her eyes shifted up to Harry’s face, a thin glassy layer of tears spreading to line her bottom eyelid as she watched her friend breathing peacefully in the white linens of the hospital bed. “There is a small chance, however, that he may never walk again,” she finally admitted.

“Oh,” Ron said feebly as he, too, watched the reassuring rise and fall of Harry’s chest. “But he’ll pull through? He’ll live, I mean?” Ron asked, needing to hear her say the words.

“He’ll live,” she said. He could just see the nodding motion of her head out of the corner of his vision.

“Then that’s all that matters,” Ron declared, turning to smile reassuringly at Hermione. “After all, he’s ‘The Boy Who Lived’, so he needs to live up to that reputation.”

Hermione let out a soft laugh at Ron’s joke as she reached up to brush away the tears from her eyes. “Is your family on their way?” Hermione asked as she brushed back the loose curls from her face.

Ron’s eyebrows drew together in confusion, thrown by the shift of topics. “Oh, ummm…”

The softness that had composed her face only moments ago gave way to a look of frustration that Ron was all too familiar with. “You Floo’d them and told them that Harry had been injured, didn’t you?”

Ron flinched at the accusation in her words. “I didn’t...I figured...I thought you would’ve—” Ron veered in another direction when Hermione’s hands balled into fists at her side, “—somebody would have already done that.”

“Typical,” Hermione spat before closing her eyes and taking a few deep breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth. “We’re not together anymore, Ronald. And you made it very clear that they were  _ your _ family and not  _ my _ family. I have been trying to respect that, so you have some nerve to come in here and assume that I would have done your dirty work.”

“In case you didn’t know, I was also attacked tonight, Hermione!” Ron shot back, his voice rising as they began to slip into the ruts of their frequently trod fight path. “Thanks for checking to see if I’m alright, by the way.”

Hermione glared at him before shoving her wand into the pocket of the noxiously green Healer robe.  _ That colour makes her look like she’s about to chunder _ , Ron thought viciously to himself.

“I’m not doing this with you anymore. You should let them know what’s happened. Harry’s as good as a Weasley and they’ll want to be here for him.”

Hermione had just made it to the door when Ron called after her, “Hermione, wait!” She stood with her back to him, hand still resting on the handle of the door, but she didn’t leave.

“I’m sorry, ‘Mione. You’re right. I should have Floo’d them first thing. I just wasn’t thinking clearly.”

She took a deep breath and let go of the handle, turning around and leaning back against the door with her arms crossed in front of her. “I’m sorry, too. I think I still have some unresolved anger to work through.”

Ron sat on the edge of the bed at Harry’s feet, eyes downcast. There was a scuff mark on the speckled white of the floor and Ron rubbed at it with one toe of his shoes. “I know what you mean,” Ron huffed out a mirthless laugh. “I lied about having a girlfriend earlier so...yeah. Clearly I still have some issues to work through, too.”

“I wondered about that,” Hermione said. “I rather thought you would try something different in that regard.”

Ron threw his arms in the air, frustration flaring once more. “Merlin’s balls, how many times do I have to tell you that I’m not gay?”

This was a sore spot for Ron, this particular fight, because a part of him wondered if this had been the final nail in the coffin of their marriage, and it all started with one moment of weakness—a lapse of judgment, really—a year and a half ago.

When Hermione had resurrected her friendship with Viktor Krum two years after the war ended, Ron had been far from thrilled. Surprisingly though, he had found himself coming around to his previous romantic rival and the three of them had formed a mutual friendship. Viktor would swing by Ron and Hermione’s place whenever he was in town for a match or for one of the many lucrative sponsorship deals he had. He wasn’t the hotshot young Seeker anymore, but he was still one of the most in-demand players in the European Quidditch league.

One night, after far too many firewhiskys, Hermione convinced Viktor that it would just be easier if he crashed on their couch; the Floo network could make your stomach lurch under the best of circumstances, but add a third of a bottle of firewhisky to it and it was a blueprint for disaster. The three of them had been sprawled together on their couch, laughing and enjoying the dual warmths of the fireplace and the whisky. Hermione demanded a foot massage from her doting husband and had twisted around, placing her feet in Ron’s lap and leaning back against Viktor’s legs to rest her head on the couch’s armrest.

Ron dutifully began to massage her feet, so much smaller than his own, twisting the short toes side to side in succession before digging his thumbs into the arch of her foot. Hermione let out a moan at that moment that seemed to shift the entire vibe of the room, sexual tension expanding to fill their small sitting room. His cock shifted, beginning to fill where it rested under Hermione’s bare foot.

Ron looked up to see Viktor shifting nervously, still pinned beneath Hermione’s torso, but by the way his eyes were darting around the room and looking at anything but the other wizard and witch in the room, Ron guessed that Hermione’s moan had not gone unappreciated by Viktor either. Ron braced himself for the stabbing jealousy that he expected to flood through him, but to his surprise, it never came. Ron’s eyes drifted down to Hermione’s face and found her staring back at him, lower lip crooked as she bit down on one side of it and eyes dark, the irises expanding as the seconds ticked past.

Experimentally, Ron gave Hermione’s arch another deep pass of his thumb and she moaned once more, eyes flicking up to Viktor’s face above her. As Ron watched, Viktor’s tongue peeked out and swiped across his lips as he looked down at the woman resting across his lap. Hermione’s nipples were hardening, the tight mounds clearly visible beneath the soft cotton of her tee-shirt, unencumbered by any bra as shedding that was always the first thing she did upon arriving home.

“Kiss her.” It took Ron a moment to realise that the words were his. He hadn’t stopped to consider what he was saying, had just let his subconscious desire take control of his lips.

Hermione’s eyes lingered on Viktor for a moment before she pulled them away, eyebrows drawing together in confusion as she looked to him. “Ron?”

The single word, the question, contained immense complexity. Ron wasn’t entirely sure where this was going or where he wanted it to go, but he didn’t want to stop and analyse it to death. He wanted to fling caution to the wind and see where it blew them.

“Kiss her,” Ron said, voice much more confident this time around. Viktor shot him an incredulous look, but when Ron nodded slightly, Viktor returned his gaze to the woman in his lap. Ron held his breath, ready to put a stop to this whole escapade, as Viktor gently brushed his hand over Hermione’s hair before leaning down and skimming his lips over Hermione’s.

That first night they’d spent together was all a bit of a blur, the alcohol and exhilaration giving the whole thing a dream-like quality to it. When they’d woken up the next morning, Hermione tucked between he and Viktor, there had been an inevitable awkwardness, but it melted away like the pats of butter they’d spread over the pancakes they made for breakfast and soon they’d settled into a fun flirtation.

From then on, whenever Krum came into town he never bothered to book a hotel room. Sometimes they would stay in and play a board game together, other times they would paint the town red, dancing up a storm. The evenings always ended the same way though: with the three of them together under the sheets.

Viktor and Ron had always kept a safe distance between them though, Hermione bridging the space between them. At most, their fingers would graze against one another as they both appreciated the soft mounds and curves of Hermione’s body. Sometimes, Ron would find his eyes wandering though, appreciating the chiselled musculature of Viktor’s body as he would slowly stroke himself while he watched Ron make love to Hermione. Ron had always made excuses for his covert glances: he was just curious, he wanted to compare Viktor’s thick cock to his own, he was just anticipating his turn to watch Hermione with the other man. A niggling voice in Ron’s head insisted that those were all excuses he came up with after the fact and didn’t even cross his mind at the time, but Ron silenced the voice, resolutely ignoring it whenever it protested.

And that was how they might have continued if it wasn’t for that one night when Hermione had to stay late at St Mungo’s and it had just been him at home to greet Krum. Ron had cooked them dinner, grinning and flushing with pride when Viktor’s eyes had rolled back in his head and he’d moaned at the first taste of the brisket that Ron had been roasting all day.

They had finished their meal and moved into the sitting room, a few hands worth of fingers of whisky between them. They flitted between random topics before they hit on the photoshoot that Krum had spent all afternoon at. It had been for a new line of Quidditch-themed underpants and when Ron found out that Viktor was still wearing one of the pairs, Ron pleaded to see them.

Viktor laughed him off at first, but when Ron insisted he was serious, Krum shrugged and stood up, letting his trousers fall to the floor. Ron laughed at the garish garment, shifting closer so he could watch as the Golden Snitch on the fabric came to life and went whizzing around and over Viktor’s arse. Ron reached out, grabbing hold of Viktor’s broad thighs, registering the hair there that was so unlike Hermione’s smooth skin, and encouraged him to spin around so Ron could follow the Snitch’s path. As Viktor finished his rotation and came around to face Ron, the Snitch veered north and crawled up and over the elastic waistband, disappearing inside.

Ron swallowed, watching as Viktor’s sizeable cock began to fill, shifting beneath the forest green stretchy material. Slowly, Ron looked up to find Viktor’s dark eyes burning into him, a questioning look in them. Ron wasn’t sure what possessed him to slide his hands up Viktor’s thighs and hook his fingers under the elastic band. He paused for a few beats before pulling the elastic down at a torturously slow pace. Viktor’s cock emerged, still mostly flaccid, a thick nest of dark curls at its base.

Ron didn’t know what possessed him that night, and even then he had known that this wasn’t right—that it was a betrayal of Hermione’s trust. They had never actually talked about this possibility before, about whether it had to be all three of them, or whether individual pairings was okay. But he hadn’t let that uncertainty stop him.

After it was over, a tension that hadn’t been there since that first time came over them; Krum made his excuses and left. When Hermione finally returned home and crawled into bed behind him, all the conviction that Ron managed to build up since Krum had left quickly abandoned him and he didn't have the courage to tell her what had happened. He just took comfort in her warm arms wrapping around his torso and cuddling up to him from behind.

Ron tried for weeks after that to tell Hermione what had happened, but the time never felt right—and then he had run out of time.

“But you’re not straight as an arrow either, are you? Because I don’t know a lot of strictly heterosexual men that willingly give blowjobs to other men!” Hermione’s voice was rising and Ron shook himself out of the memories that he still wasn’t entirely sure he was ready to face the impact of.

“One man! That happened once!” Ron shouted back before scraping his hands through his hair in frustration.

“Quantity isn’t the important factor here, Ron!” Hermione accused before turning to glance out the door of the window, where a few people walking by had stopped to gawk at them as they fought. “I don’t want to do this here and, to be frank, I don’t really want to do it period. We’re not married anymore, so who you date is no longer my concern.”

Hermione stepped forward and Ron stepped back, only noticing now that he had begun to crowd into her space, gearing to face off yet again. Old habits died hard.

Hermione spun and yanked open the door. “Floo your family. I’ll be back to check on Harry in a few hours, and I’d appreciate it if you weren’t here when I do,” she stated flatly as she stepped through the door and disappeared down the hallway.

Ron sighed. His first meeting with Hermione since the divorce could have gone any number of ways but that was certainly not one of the more ideal ones. He walked back over to the bed and watched Harry’s chest rise and fall several times. “I’ll be right back,” he promised, unsure if Harry could hear him, before heading to the lobby to find a Floo.


	5. Draco

“Darling, you need a vacation.”

Draco glared at his best friend as she took a drink of her wine and began scanning the dark bar once more. He cast a nervous glance around the room, eyes snagging on a couple of middle-aged witches that glared at him before turning away and whispering furiously with one another.

“Look, right there. Those two are watching me.” Draco tilted his head in the direction of the two witches, directing Pansy where to look.

Her eyes scanned them for a few beats before she shrugged and turned back to him, setting her wine down on the small round table between them and leaning forward. “Well yeah, but it’s not like there’s anything new about that, is there? There are lots of people that still aren’t exactly pleased to have you around,” she said, giving him a pitying look that set his teeth on edge.

Draco pitched his torso forward, grabbing a hold of the edge of the table on either side. “It’s not just them though, Pans. I’m telling you, someone has been following me,” he hissed, failing to keep the fear out of his voice.

“But you don’t actually know that, do you? Have you ever actually  _ seen _ anyone following you?” she pressed.

“Well...no, but I—”

“See! You’ve never actually seen anyone following you. All you’ve got is a few people giving you dirty looks. That isn’t exactly a smoking wand, now is it?”

“Pansy, I’m telling you, no matter where I go, it feels like there’s someone watching me!” Draco slammed a fist onto the table, sending Pansy’s wine sloshing up the walls of her glass. Draco looked around the bar once more; the two witches didn’t seem to be paying them any attention right now, but Draco still had that creeping sensation of eyes on him. He focused instead on the legs of wine on the clear glass as they slowly disappeared.

Pansy lifted his fist with both of her hands and stroked his fingers until he relaxed them, spreading his long, cool digits across her palm, his fingertips stretching down to her wrist. Pansy closed her hands around his and held it while she stared intently at him.

“I’m sorry, Draco. I don’t mean to be flippant. Do you want to come and stay with me for a while?” she offered, smiling kindly at him.

Draco considered the offer for a few seconds before shaking his head in denial, sighing. “Thanks, but no thanks, Pans. If I stayed with you, we’d probably kill each other by the end of the first day.”

Pansy grinned at him. “Don’t underestimate our talents, darling. I’m sure we could accomplish mutual destruction in twelve hours, tops.” Draco snorted at that and shifted his hand to wrap his fingers around the back of Pansy’s hand, holding onto it. Pansy sobered and continued, “But seriously, you know that you’re always welcome to come and stay with me. If you really think that someone is following you, then you shouldn’t be alone in that wretched flat of yours.”

“My flat is not ‘wretched’, Pans,” Draco said. He was quite proud of his flat, actually. It didn’t have the spaciousness, grandeur, and opulence of Malfoy Manor, but he had worked hard on it. After all of the reparations payments were made, the Malfoy vaults, which Draco had grown up thinking were infinite, had been scraped bare. There had only been a pittance left, just enough for his mother to set herself up in a small cottage in France and for Draco to secure a shoebox-sized flat in London.

He had considered going with his mother to France; the appeal of starting over in a place where the Malfoy name hadn’t been dragged through the dirt was a siren call. He had decided to stay, though—his pride had demanded it.

Draco had been raised to believe in the absolute truth that wizards should hold absolute dominion over Muggles and that the purity of your blood was directly proportional to your quality as a wizard. It wasn’t until the last few years of the war, when the Malfoy family had lost all of its prestige within the Dark Lord’s ranks, that those beliefs began to be challenged. As simple as if it were a flip of the coin, the foundations holding up his family’s legacy had collapsed and they had been shunted down to the lowest ranks of the Dark Lord’s army. That shouldn’t have been possible if their superiority was truly as innate as he had been raised to believe.

After the war, Draco fought the urge to retreat back into the easy comfort of his own superiority and vowed to rebuild himself anew. He had decided that the best way to learn about Muggles was to immerse himself in them. He had chosen his flat because it was nestled in a bustling Muggle neighbourhood—not to mention that it was one of the limited number of flats he had looked at that he could actually afford. He had been tempted to throw in the towel on innumerable occasions, feeling stymied by even the most simple of tasks in the Muggle world, but he persevered. He slept on nothing but a Cushioning Charm for the first few months, which would inevitably fade before morning and leave him to wake up on the hard, bare floor. Eventually, he discovered a large charity shop that was several streets from his flat and—after overcoming his initial repulsion at the idea of being a recipient of “charity”— he slowly furnished it with a kaleidoscope of unique pieces. Nothing “matched” and it was the exact opposite of the cool elegance of the Manor in its glory days, but it felt cosy and Draco wouldn’t change a thing. Well, except for the fact that his shower always ran out of hot water after a measly five minutes.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Pansy said airily as she let go of his hand and sat back, waving her hand in the air vaguely as if she could wave off the existence of his abode. “And all those Muggles scurrying around like rats outside of your flat is definitely  _ not _ beautiful in my book.”

“Pans,” Draco warned. He had made a lot of progress in the last six years in expunging his prejudices, but Pansy hadn’t really bothered. The Parkinson family, though sympathetic to the Death Eater cause, had never made the affiliation official, and though they were met with a fair amount of judgment and scrutiny after the war, it was nothing compared to what the families bearing the Dark Mark were exposed to.

“I know, I know,” she sighed, rolling her eyes. They’d had this argument before: Draco letting it be known that he was not receptive to her intolerance anymore. “I should probably watch what I say anyway—who knows if there’s one of those Just Blood nutcases around? Oh my god!” she gasped and leaned forward again, looking around nervously, "What if that's who's following you? What if they've decided to make you their next target?!"

Pansy did seem to be genuinely concerned for him, but he didn’t miss the twinkle in her eye that betrayed that her interest had been piqued by the possibility that he could be at the centre of some nefarious plot. Pansy had always had a flair for the dramatic.

The idea had crossed his mind though. He may have stuck to the fringes of the wizarding world in recent years, but he still liked to keep informed on the happenings. Barely a day had gone by this year without the Just Blood Alliance gracing the Prophet’s pages with some protest or rally or editorial piece. And several of the pieces had mentioned the Malfoys, arguing that the Wizengamot had let them off with a slap on the wrist, a fact which proved the corruption within the wizarding high court to them. They conveniently never mentioned that his father was sentenced to Azkaban for his crimes and that he lost his life there, most likely attacked by an as-yet-unidentified inmate. His father’s fate would be a fly in the ointment of their argument, after all.

Draco usually  _ Incendio _ ’d those particular issues of the Daily Prophet.

When it was just the Alliance, Draco had ignored the slander, knowing that if he had put up any kind of protest in his and his mother’s defence, it would look like he was trying to deny the part they’d played. The truth was, they were guilty, and the Alliance was probably right: the Wizengamot did show leniency to them. His age at the time and the fact that his mother had never taken the Dark Mark had played in their favour, but if it hadn’t been for Potter speaking in their defence, Draco was sure that the Wizengamot would have happily tossed them to the wolves to appease the demands for blood from the angry hordes.

Draco didn’t even blame them. Once the initial shock that Voldemort was really gone, once and for all, and the exhaustion brought on by years of stress and fighting and deaths and disappearances had started to resolve, what was left behind was burning anger. There was nary a single witch or wizard in England whose life hadn’t been impacted by the war, and lucky were those that could count their lost families and friends on one hand. And Draco had actively contributed to all of that pain and suffering. He had the mark on his arm as a constant reminder, the colour of which was the same rusty red of all the dried blood that Voldemort’s army had spilt.

Deep down, Draco even agreed with them; he had gotten off easily. A part of him wondered if he deserved to be locked up in Azkaban, paying for his crimes by being sectioned off away from the people he’d hurt. That flicker of self-hatred was always there, burning steadily in his gut, but instead of feeding the flame, Draco harnessed it and used it to fuel his growth. He wasn’t sure redemption was possible for someone like him, but he was never going to stop striving for it anyway.

“The Daily Prophet hasn’t published an editorial that stops just short of suggesting I bought my freedom by dropping to my knees and sucking the cock of every member of the Wizengamot in months, so it seems like I’ve fallen off their radar,” Draco said drolly, taking a drink of his martini.

Pansy rolled her eyes. “If they were going to target you, they’d hardly blare it across the newspaper, now would they?”

A shot of annoyance went through him that she hadn’t agreed with his reasoning. He really needed to find some more supportive friends. That creeping sensation of being watched was back again, so Draco covertly looked around the bar, but once again nobody seemed to be paying them much attention.

“And the Army is nothing to take lightly,” Pansy continued. “They took credit for that explosion that took out the Carrows, and remember how they found Jugson a few months ago with his eyes pulled out and his tongue cut off? They haven’t taken credit for it, but the Aurors think they were responsible for that as well. I still can’t believe the Prophet printed that picture.”

“Thanks, Pans. I’m so glad you were free to come out and get a drink with me after months of not seeing you just to give me a whole new thing to worry about,” Draco said, shuddering as he remembered the grisly picture of the eye that had been ripped out of its socket. The Ministry had fined the Prophet for printing the shocking image, but that issue had hit the highest circulation numbers since the day after the Battle of Hogwarts.

“I’m sorry, Draco, but now I’m getting worried. Maybe you should go to the DMLE. What if the Army really does have you in their wand-sights? You should talk to someone about it,” Pansy said seriously.

“Even if the DMLE wanted to protect me, who says they could? They didn’t do such a stellar job with that witness that was blown up when they were supposed to be protecting him.” Draco had avidly followed the story when it broke last month. For twenty-four hours, the entire British wizarding population had waited on tenterhooks to find out whether Harry Potter had run out of lives or whether he would miraculously evade death once more.

Draco had been so conflicted, the old habit of placing himself in opposition to Potter and the other two corners of his Golden Trio meant that his first reaction was Schadenfreude at their failure, but he still felt like he owed Potter for his freedom, so it was chased soon after by guilt. Ultimately, he breathed a sigh of relief with everyone else when it was announced that Potter had been injured, but was expected to make a full recovery.

The Prophet hadn’t managed to procure an image of Potter in the hospital, though Draco was sure they had tried to bribe every member of St Mungo’s staff in an attempt to. So instead, Ron Weasley’s face had graced the front page of the Daily Prophet for a full week. Draco had found his eyes straying over to the cream-coloured newsprint more times than he could count that week as he’d been sitting at his desk, trying to work.

Weasley’s hair was much longer than he’d ever worn it back at Hogwarts, pulled back into a short ponytail at the back of his head which Draco could just make out when the Weasley in the photograph had turned towards another flashing bulb before the photograph cycled back to begin again. An assortment of scratches and bruises had been sprinkled across his face and arms, indicating that he had been in the heat of the action when their protection detail had failed catastrophically. The baby fat that had padded out his cheeks when he was younger was gone now, giving his features a more sculpted look.

Draco had to admit that the Weasel looked pretty fit now.

Pansy let out a decidedly ungraceful snorting sound. “You have a point. Given their recent track record, that would probably leave you blown to smithereens. I was joking earlier, but maybe a vacation isn’t such a bad idea. You could go visit your mother in France for a while,” Pansy suggested.

Draco shook his head. “This is not a good time to just leave town,” he protested. “I’ve still got so much work to do to get the music programme off the ground. And besides, I’m going to visit her over Christmas hols. I don’t think I could handle two visits in three months.”

He and his mother had always been close when he was a child. He would never describe his mother as being a “warm” person, but compared to his withholding, glacial father, she was a cuddly teddy bear. She had been the first person he would run to whenever he scraped a knee or had a bad dream. As he’d grown older, he’d been constantly striving for his father’s attention and approval, but his mother had always provided both without question.

His mother had risked everything to ensure his safety during the final battle of the Second Wizarding War and Draco would always be grateful. However, where he had chosen the path of most resistance and travailed to put some good back into the world to atone for the evil that he had added, his mother had not. Following the war, his mother had become increasingly bitter, resentful that the privilege she had benefited from for her whole life was slowly chipped away: husband imprisoned, vaults drained, properties seized. Lucius’s death had been the tipping point and now Narcissa would take every opportunity to spit vitriol about her perceived enemies—which included almost the entirety of Britain.

Narcissa also had nothing kind to say about Draco’s organization and the work he did in the hope of bridging the gap between the wizarding and Muggle worlds. She had defied Lord Voldemort in the end, but her decision had been in no way influenced by a change in her attitude towards blood status. She remained recalcitrant in her belief that pure-blooded families were innately superior and deserved to sit in the upper echelons of wizarding society. Whenever Draco would go down and visit her in France, she seized every opportunity afforded to her to try and convince Draco that his talents and charm would be better put to use doing something more reputable. Banking, perhaps.

“Well, promise me that you’ll at least be careful. And if somebody so much as sneezes on you, you nail that creep in the bollocks and get the hell out of there,” Pansy demanded.

Draco laughed, reminded all over again why he loved Pansy Parkinson. She had married one of the sons from a prominent German wizarding family dynasty two years ago and they split their time between Germany and Britain, so Draco didn’t get to see her as often as he would like. It had taken two months and three reschedules to get them both here today. He supposed that was just what happened as you aged and your life filled with other commitments. “That’s not very progressive of you, Pans. What if my attacker is a woman?”

Pansy shrugged as she smirked at him. “Don’t be silly, darling. We’re the fairer sex; we don’t resort to something as crass as a physical attack. We prefer tormenting you psychologically. Or by withholding sex. Depends on what mood we’re in.”

“Thank Merlin I prefer the company of men,” Draco said, laughing.

“Honey, you dodged a bullet,” Pansy deadpanned and the two of them grinned at each other for a few seconds before devolving into laughter. Had they taken in their surroundings right then, they would have found more than a few sets of eyes watching them, but the moment of levity was providing Draco with a welcome respite from the heightened level of paranoia he’d been plagued with recently.

Hours later, they parted ways, Pansy retreating back through the shifting bricks into Diagon Alley and Draco stumbling out of the front door of the Leaky into Muggle London. The streets were quiet, not a lot of people bustling about at nearly midnight on a Tuesday evening. Pulling his coat tighter to block out the cool fall temperature, Draco was a street away from the tube station when he heard the echoing sound of heavy footsteps coming from behind him. Covertly looking into the side mirror of one of the cars parked along the side of the road, Draco managed to make out a figure dressed in black, a hooded sweatshirt pulled up and obscuring his head. The figure appeared to be a half-street behind him and was keeping pace, but it was hard to be sure.

It felt like all of the alcohol evaporated from his bloodstream in an instant and all of his senses went on high alert. He contemplated Apparition, but when he looked up to the buildings overlooking the street, he could see people moving around, going about their late-night activities, and he didn’t want to risk being seen. Not wanting to alert his pursuer to the fact that he knew he was being followed, Draco pulled his hands out of his coat pocket in preparation and forced himself to maintain his pace for now.

Draco took a deep breath to prepare himself and as soon as he rounded the corner, he burst forward, running flat out towards the tube station entrance that was halfway down the street. He dashed past a couple of people making their way down the street in the opposite direction and he heard the sounds of angry shouting, but he couldn’t make out any of the words. He had just reached the entrance to the station when he heard the sounds of charging pursuit from behind him.

He didn’t waste time, pulling out his oyster card and swiping it over the electronic lock for the barrier. He didn’t look back as he took a right and ran down the stairs to his platform. He was relieved to see that the train was already at the platform and he put on a burst of speed, sliding in between the closing doors. Draco stood there panting from the exertion as he saw a black-clad figure emerge from the stairwell and run toward him, hands pounding against the side of the retreating train.

Spinning around, Draco collapsed against the doors of the train as he gathered his breath. After a few deep breaths, he opened his eyes and looked around the train. Even though it was largely empty, only a few scattered people in seats, Draco expected to be met with curious looks, but nobody was looking at him. The woman sitting nearest him, across the car from the door that he was still leaning against, had her nose buried in a book. He recognized it as a book that had just come out that month, the sequel to a popular book about vampires; it was impossible to go anywhere these days without seeing a teenage girl or middle age woman engrossed in it.

The adrenaline of the past few minutes caught up to him all at once and a bubble of frenetic laughter rose up inside his chest and burst free. The woman didn’t even look up from her book, which only made him laugh harder.


	6. Ron

“What time is it, Ronniekins?” his mum asked as she pulled open the oven door to inspect the rack of lamb inside, the delicious smell filling the kitchen and making his mouth water.

Ron looked down at his wristwatch and smiled. Being the sixth boy in their family, he had worn nothing but hand-me-downs for all of his childhood, but this watch was the one exception. This was the first item of his wardrobe that he ever owned that was solely his. Witches and wizards were traditionally gifted a timepiece when they came of age, a symbol of their transition to a new phase of their lives with new responsibilities and challenges. This gift would have held great meaning to him anyway, but the fact that they scrimped and saved to buy it for him made it all the more important to him.

“It’s quarter to seven, mum, and don’t call me Ronniekins. I’m twenty-six years old! Here, let me do that.” Ron rushed over and commandeered the oven mitts before his mother could put them on and bent down to lift the heavy roast pan, overfull with meat and vegetables, from the oven.

“Thank you, luv!” His mom reached over and wrapped her hand around his neck, pulling him towards her and planting a kiss on his cheek. “It doesn’t matter how old you get, you’ll always be my little Ronniekins.”

Ron huffed but smiled fondly at his mother. The nickname had always gotten under his skin when he was a teenager, but now he protested mostly out of habit. He knew how fortunate he was to have his mum, and with all of the hardships she had gone through, she could call him whatever she wanted.

“Did you set the table?” she asked as she swung her wand around the kitchen, sending a variety of kitchen utensils off to their assigned tasks.

“Yes, mum, I set the table.” Ron rolled his eyes and gave his mother a fond look. It had been his job to set the table for dinner since he had been old enough to see over the top of it, but his mum still asked him before every meal. Ron wondered whether she and his dad had just eaten meals off of their laps while he and Hermione had been together, with no one there to set the table. Well, that’s one benefit of his divorce: now that he had moved back and was living at the Burrow, there was always someone to set the table for them. Ron shoved the maudlin thought aside.

“That’s a dear. Now, take these in and put them on the table, please. Everyone should be here any time now.” Molly loaded Ron’s arms up with three bowls full of various side dishes, forcing him to balance one between his arm and his chest, before spinning him around by the shoulder and pushing him towards the dining room.

Ron had just set the bowls down in the centre of the table, readying for the hectic feeding frenzy that was imminent and inevitable at their Sunday family dinners, when he heard someone shouting from the sitting room.

“Can I get...a little help here?” Ginny grunted from the sitting room, the words staggered. Ron rushed in to find her struggling to hold up Harry, who had one arm thrown around her shoulders while both of hers were wrapped around his waist. Harry’s legs were there in form but not function, bearing very little of Harry’s weight as Ginny held him up.

“What the bloody hell?” Ron asked as he rushed over to help, taking Harry’s other arm and throwing it over his shoulders, bending down so that Ginny and he could split the weight between them. “Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t bringing the chair? I would have Floo’d over to your place and helped you.”

“Are we going to start pointing fingers about proper Floo etiquette? Because I still have a huge bone to pick with you!” Ginny snapped, shooting Ron a dirty look.

Ginny had torn a strip up one side of him and down the other when she’d found out that Ron hadn’t contacted her the instant that something had happened to Harry. For a time, Ron thought that they would need to make up a bed for him right next to Harry’s in St Mungo’s, but fortunately, when Harry had woken up and the Healers had told them that they expected Harry to make a full recovery, Ginny’s rage downgraded from murderous to savage. “No, sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I was just surprised is all. Why didn’t you guys bring the chair?”

“This stubborn blighter didn’t want to bring his wheelchair,” Ginny huffed out as they made their way over to their dad’s armchair.

“I hate that thing and I just want one day where I don’t have to feel like an invalid,” Harry bit out as they deposited him carefully in the armchair, his face pinched in pain for a few moments before it smoothed out.

“Mate, you only need to use it for a few months. Just until you’re more steady on your feet,” Ron chastened his friend gently. He knew Harry didn’t like to feel helpless, but he was so stubborn sometimes.

Harry sighed and gave Ron a small smile. “I know, I’m just being ridiculous and I just need to buck up and deal with it.” Harry’s expression cleared and he grinned. “At least I have an easy Halloween costume. I’ll just shave my head and go as Professor X.”

“Did he teach at Hogwarts?” Ron asked, trying to remember a professor by that description.

Ginny rolled her eyes. “It’s a comic book character, Ron. They’ve just released a new film over the summer.”

Ron shrugged. Even when he and Hermione had been together, they’d never gone to the cinema very often. Hermione was always more of a fan of cultural activities like going to the museum or the opera if they were going to have a date night. Ron would nod along and look like he was interested while Hermione would explain the symbolism in the art, but it had never been Ron’s cup of tea. He would have rather gone to a Quidditch match, but Hermione’s disinterest in the game had never really abated and the tickets were so expensive that it didn’t make sense to spend all of that money if she wouldn’t enjoy it.

“I don’t think you could pull off the bald look,” Ron joked. “Plus just imagine the absolute frenzy you would set off when all the ladies got a clean look at that sexy scar of yours without it always being hidden behind your fringe.”

“That’s true,” Harry said, rubbing his chin as if considering the idea. “I’d have ladies throwing themselves at me.”

“Oi!” Ginny shouted, smacking both of them upside the heads lightly.

Laughing, Harry pulled Ginny down into his lap and wrapped his arms around her, capturing her lips in a kiss before nuzzling into her neck. “You know that you’re the only woman for me,” he assured her.

“Come on now,” Ron groaned. “Do you two have to be so revoltingly in love?”

With a devilish grin, Ginny turned to face Harry, running her fingers through his dark hair. “I don’t know, do we have to be, Harry-warry?” she asked in a lovey-dovey voice.

“I don’t think we can help it, schnookums,” Harry cooed back as they rubbed the tips of their noses together.

Ron sunk down onto the couch, the cushion bowed from years of use. “Blegh,” he grumbled. He was joking, mostly, but there was a not-insignificant part of him that was a little jealous. It had been a long time since he’d felt that in love, like that one person was the most interesting human being on the planet, endlessly captivating.

Ginny turned in Harry’s lap again to face him, settling back against him and resting her head on the back of the armchair over his shoulder. She played idly with one of Harry’s hands in her lap while he stroked her arm lightly with the other. “You know, maybe if you weren’t such a mopey bugger, somebody would actually want to snog you again,” Ginny accused.

Ron crossed his arms in front of him and shot his only sister a scowl. “It’s not that easy to just...snog someone!” Ron burst out, feeling defensive. Besides, it hadn’t even been that long since the divorce parchments had been signed; it was normal to have a period of grieving after your marriage ended, surely.

Ginny shrugged, looking unconvinced. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to find someone new to snog, but I don’t remember it being all that difficult.”

“Yeah, but luv, you’re a beautiful goddess with a wicked tongue that can bring a man to his knees,” Harry paused to nod at Ron, who was looking slightly revolted by Harry’s description of his sister. “And look at him.”

“Hey!” Ron shouted, offended. Snatching up the throw pillow beside him, Ron tossed it at Harry’s head, sending his glasses askew.

“Not just a pretty face on my man,” Ginny grinned, setting Harry’s frames to rights before tossing the pillow back to Ron. “What if we set you up?” she asked.

“Set me up? Like on a date?” Ron asked, surprised by the offer.

“No, set you up to take the fall for a crime. Of course, on a date.” Ginny rolled her eyes at him before a contemplative look settled on her face. “Hmmm...who could we set you up with?” she mused, staring off over his shoulder out the window of the Burrow, the scene freshly painted with the warm colours of autumn.

“I hear Rita Skeeter is still single,” Harry suggested, grinning over at Ron, who promptly tossed the pillow back at his best friend. This time, Harry reached up and snatched the pillow out of the air before it could make contact with his head.

“Oh! I know! They’ve just hired this really cute new writer that handles the advice column! Tall, dark hair, kind of mysterious looking...Romanian maybe? Very fit!” Ginny had been playing Quidditch professionally for five years, but she had recently retired to accept the position as Quidditch correspondent for the Daily Prophet. It chafed that she worked for that rag, but he had to admit her options were limited; it wasn’t as if the Quibbler had a Quidditch section. At least this way her and Harry could stay in Britain.

“I don’t know…” Ron hedged, sort of intrigued by Ginny’s description, but still unsure.

“Oh, come on, Ron!” Ginny wheedled. “This guy’s a dreamboat! If I weren’t so faithful, Harry would have some real competition.”

Ginny winked at him but Ron barely registered the gesture, his entire focus snagged on the word ‘guy’. Letting out a nervous laugh, Ron asked, “What do you mean, he’s a guy?”

“I mean that he’s a guy. A man. A phallus-bearer. At least, I’m assuming he bears a phallus...I’ve never actually seen it for myself or anything...” Ginny trailed off, looking back and forth between Harry and Ron, who were now exchanging heated words with their eyes, eyebrows dancing around comically. “Oh. Was I supposed to pretend I didn’t know that you are into blokes?”

Ron tossed his hands in the air and slammed his body back against the couch. “I’m not into blokes! Or...I don’t know. It was ONE TIME!” Turning towards his best friend, he held up one finger, pointing it at him accusingly. “And I told you that IN CONFIDENCE!”

Ginny leaned forward, finger pointed accusingly at Ron in return. “Okay, first off: stop yelling. Unless you want mum to come in here and we can explain to her your recent interest in sucking cock.” At her words, Ron glanced nervously towards the kitchen, having forgotten that his mum was not far away in the other room. “Good. Secondly, Harry didn’t tell me anything that I hadn’t already heard from Hermione.”

“WHAT?!” Ron screeched before clapping his hand over his mouth and waiting to see whether his mother’s curly, red hair popped in from the kitchen. When the coast remained clear, he hissed at her, “Why would she tell you about... _ that?” _

Ginny gave her brother an incredulous look. “How were you married as long as you were and never realised that women tell their girlfriends that kind of thing?” At his look of horror, she chuckled. “Calm down, Ron. Nobody here is judging you. It doesn’t matter a lick to me what—or whom—you lick.” Harry suppressed a snort at that and Ginny turned around and grinned at him. His only reaction to Ron’s angry scowl was a small shrug.

“Really?” Ron asked nervously, voice barely above a whisper. Ron had been actively not thinking about what that evening with Krum might mean for him, not ready to unravel the threads of his self-identity just yet. Unable to keep it entirely to himself though, he had confided in Harry one evening over too many firewhiskys.

“Ron, you root for the Chudley Cannons and we still love you despite that. This is nothing compared to that grievous lack of judgment.” Ginny smiled at him, the warmth and reassurance shining out of her eyes.

“I still think they have a chance next season,” Ron argued, smiling shyly as he rubbed his palms against the rough denim covering his thighs. Shaking his head slightly, he went back to their original topic of discussion, “But if you knew all this time, why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“I don’t know. I guess you didn’t really seem open to talking about the divorce at all. Every time I would try to broach the topic, you’d either bite my head off or find some way to change the topic,” Ginny said.

“So...are you interested in dating blokes, then?” Harry asked, watching Ron curiously.

Ron bent forward, hands cupping the side of his head and elbows resting on his knees, and groaned. “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it,” he lied. Unless he was vigilantly policing his thoughts, they tended to stray there of their own accord now. He’d even found himself checking out the clerk at the curry takeaway restaurant he frequented. Now was as good a time as any to tackle this particular subject, he figured. “I guess...maybe?”

“Are you asking us, mate? Because that’s really something you need to answer for yourself.” Ron looked up to see Harry watching him sympathetically.

Ron huffed out a mirthless laugh. “Or I could just take a vow of celibacy and not have to worry about it. You can still wank if you’re celibate, right?”

“If you’re not ready, you’re not ready,” Ginny said, reaching out and placing a comforting hand on his forearm. “There’s no rush, you know. You should take your time and wait until you find someone that feels right.”

“Thanks, guys.” Ron shot the couple a grateful look.

“It’s too bad though,” Ginny mused. “Gheorghe, the guy I thought you might like, is Muggle-born I think. So not only is he fit, but it would take the wind out of the Just Blood Alliance sails if you dated someone with a Muggle background.”

“Don’t tell me you read that load of rot?” Ron asked incredulously. Some wankers in the Alliance had been making allusions in the Prophet that part of the reason he and Hermione had broken up was that Ron didn’t want to “sully his sacred bloodline” by having children with a Muggle-born witch. The allegations were complete and total codswallop, but they never ceased to get tongues wagging and put Galleons in the Prophet’s coffers. Ron liked to put those editions to good use—as fuel for his fireplace.

“It’s kind of hard not to, seeing as how I work for the Prophet and all. Every time they publish one of those asinine editorials, the gullible sheep that buy into it like to whisper about our family behind my back.” Anger flared in Ginny’s eyes and Ron cowered back at her expression—he’d been on the receiving end of one of her hexes enough to spot the signs of danger.

“It doesn’t even make any sense!” Ron protested. “If we harboured this secret hatred for Muggle-borns, why would I have even married Hermione in the first place?”

“Exactly! And anybody that’s ever met Dad knows that he’s borderline obsessed with Muggles and their technology!” Ginny agreed vehemently. “Anyone that thinks that the Weasleys are prejudiced about blood status are talking out of their arses.”

“You’d have to be a total numpty to believe any of that,” Ron agreed.

“Obviously, everyone that knows this family well knows that there’s no truth to those allegations, but it’s true that most of you did happen to end up with other pure-bloods.” When the wrathful looks of two Weasleys swung over to him, Harry quickly held up his hands in a defensive gesture. “I’m not saying it was intentional or anything! Just the fact is that there aren’t a lot of members of the Weasley clan that can’t trace back their blood lineages through at least five generations of pure-bloods.”

“What about Fleur?” Ginny accused. “She’s a quarter Veela!”

“True,” Harry allowed. “But her and Bill have been living in France for a few years, so people tend to not think about them as much. Plus, she has that way of winning people over to her side. People are always inclined to go out of their way to be agreeable to her.”

Ginny snorted and rolled her eyes. “ _ Men _ are, anyway.”

“Mum’s got that second cousin that lives in Wales that’s an accountant. He’s a Squib, I think,” Ron trailed off. To be honest, he wasn’t entirely sure. He’d never actually met him and Molly didn’t really like to talk about him.

“What’s his name?” Harry asked, gazing levelly at Ron.

“Err…” Ron fumbled. “Jonathan?”

“Jackson?” Ginny guessed as the two siblings stared at each other.

“Jason?” Ron ventured a second guess and Harry laughed.

“That’s my point. All I’m saying is that without the pleasure of knowing you all, from the outside it may seem like you harbour some prejudices about blood purity.” Harry moved to rest his hand on Ginny’s shoulder, but she shrugged him off and crossed her arms in front of her chest, sitting ramrod straight.

“So...what? I should have refused to sign the divorce papers? I should have forced Hermione to stay married to me long enough to pop out a few sprogs just to improve the optics?” Ron asked aggressively.

He knew Harry wasn’t actually saying anything of the sort, but Ron had never really thought about what their family looked like from the outside. He had grown up knowing that his family, though technically part of the stupid “Sacred Twenty-Eight”, were widely perceived to be unrepentant blood traitors, and he always took a weird pride in that. The Second Wizarding War had been overt: blood purists on one side and everyone else on the other. He had proudly embraced that label of ‘blood traitor’ then.

Since the war had ended, nobody dared to openly declare themselves a blood purist now, but that didn’t mean that those beliefs disappeared completely. Now, everything had gone underground. The public face that someone presented to the world could just be a mask that they donned to cover their real feelings. The Death Eaters wore masks to espouse their true beliefs; now people wore them to hide them.

“Don’t be daft! You know that’s not what I’m saying,” Harry defended.

Ron sighed and rubbed his palms over his face, giving himself a moment to cool down. He knew that Harry was not suggesting any such thing. Being friends with both Ron and Hermione, Harry probably knew better than anyone else all the reasons why their marriage had failed. Harry had been his best friend since they had met on that first train ride to Hogwarts, and when he and Hermione fought, Ron had usually turned to Harry to vent his frustrations and talk through his feelings. Ron felt bad about that sometimes, knowing that Harry was still close friends with Hermione as well, but he had needed his friend to see him through those tough times. Fortunately, no matter how bad he and Hermione had gotten, there had been an unspoken agreement that neither would try to “claim” Harry’s friendship in the split.

“No, I know. I just don’t understand why it’s anybody’s business but mine and Hermione’s whether we are together or not.”

“It isn’t.” Harry shrugged and gave him a pitying look. “But since when has that stopped people from gossiping, mate? You know how the Prophet is. If they could, they’d probably run a three-page exposé on the workings of our bowels.”

“That’s my first plan if we ever split,” Ginny declared. “I’m going to spill my beans about how noxious your farts are. I can just see the front page now: The Boy Who Farted!” She paired her joke with a soft elbow jab to Harry’s chest. The three of them exchanged looks as they tried to suppress their laughter, before failing miserably.

They were still laughing a minute later when the Floo flared to life and George and Angelina poured out, baby Fred cooing happily in George’s arms. As if pulled like a magnet, Molly appeared from the kitchen and claimed her grandson, kissing the downy, dark hair on the side of the baby’s head. She shouted for Arthur to come in from his shed and see the baby, tutting away Ginny’s grumbling that apparently she and Harry must be chopped liver since Molly hadn’t rushed in to see them when they’d arrived.

Shortly after, Percy and Penelope had arrived, electing to take a Ministry-supplied car since, with Audrey’s eight-month pregnant belly, the Floo was prone to leave her feeling nauseated. The nine of them settled in at the large dining table, baby Fred bouncing happily on Angelina’s lap, leaving the place setting of his namesake, which was still set at every meal, undisturbed.

“Oh, I meant to tell you, you’ll never guess who came in and filed a report with the DMLE.” Harry turned to Ron, speaking low enough so that the rest of the family couldn’t hear them over the lively discussion they were having about how Batman may have been based on a bat Animagus from the 1800s.

“Who?” Ron asked after he swallowed down the delicious bite of lamb he had been chewing.

“Malfoy.” Harry nodded as Ron’s eyebrows shot up. “He came in just as I was finishing filling out some forms they needed from me yesterday.”

“What’s he complaining about now?” Ron asked, memories of Draco Malfoy’s smarmy face tattling on them back in school rising up from his subconscious. To be fair, the Malfoy heir had made himself pretty scarce after the war and, if pressed, Ron wouldn’t actually be able to tell you what he had been up to in the intervening years. Still, Ron would lay money that he was still a whiny git.

Harry shrugged. “I’m not sure. He was still there when I left and I didn’t get a chance to ask anyone if they knew what he was there for.”

“How did he look?” Ron asked before he could think better of it. Ron felt his ears heat and he quickly adopted a keen fascination with arranging the peas on his plate. Malfoy had always been an annoying git—but he’d also been annoyingly fit. When Ron hadn’t been fighting back the urge to punch him in his smart mouth, he’d entertained fleeting ideas of shutting his mouth another way. He’d never shared that particular secret with anybody, even his best friend, but he was always grateful the beds at Hogwarts had curtains around them that provided them a level of privacy. He’d started more than one school day with a quick wank, grey eyes and a smart, upturned smirk stamped across the back of his eyelids.

Ron braved a quick glance up to see Harry eyeing him with an amused, quizzical look. “He’s very...blond,” Harry offered unhelpfully.

Ron was saved from the embarrassing moment when George called down the table asking Ron if he was just as frightened of Spiderman as he was of spiders, and the rest of the evening passed with no further mention, or thoughts, of Draco Malfoy.


	7. Draco

Draco closed his eyes briefly, taking in a lungful of the crisp October air. The sky was overcast, a sight that was more common than not at this time of the year, and the clouds felt pregnant with the potential of the first snowfall of the year; it would be early for it, but after the blazing heat of the summer they had plunged into a prolonged cold snap.

Feeling a little more settled, Draco pushed open the wrought-iron gate of the cemetery and began making his way down the cobblestone walkway of the graveyard. He hadn’t been here in almost a year, not since the day of his father’s funeral. He’d stood stony-faced, using every ounce of strength he had in him not to lash out at the rabid, bloodsucking journalists that were pushing at the boundaries that the Ministry had set up, shouting for an interview.

The funeral of Lucius Malfoy had been bound to be tabloid fodder anyway, but given the mystery surrounding his death, the public scrutiny was even worse than Draco had ever imagined it could be. His father had been stabbed to death in his cell a year ago, a rusty spoon sharpened into a point and covered in blood found in his cell. Although the room and weapon in this real-life game of Clue were easily deduced, the perpetrator was still unknown. Lucius had been in a locked cell and the obvious solution was that he had committed suicide. It would have been an easy open-and-shut case if it weren’t for the forty-nine stab wounds. Even the Ministry found it hard to explain how or why Lucius would have inflicted that much unnecessary pain on himself—no one in their right mind would. Azkaban was still no walk in the park, but since the Ministry no longer utilised Dementors, the conditions were far less likely to utterly rob a man of his sanity.

Speculation and conjecture had set the wizarding community of Britain abuzz for weeks, long after his father’s body was interred in the family’s mausoleum, the enormous marble-covered structure dominating one end of the relatively small wizarding graveyard. Inside, the air was stale and Draco had shuddered; it had felt like he had the collective judgement of countless generations of Malfoys weighing down on him as he’d stepped into the algid space.

Draco had visited his father for the first couple of years he’d been imprisoned, but the rift between them had grown to be insurmountable and, after his last visit ended in a screaming match in which his father accused him of being a blood-traitor and spat in his face, Draco made the tough decision to cut Lucius out of his life. Even though he knew it was a foolish pipe dream, Draco couldn’t help but wish that they would someday be able to reconcile. He had spent so much of his life striving for his father’s approval that it felt like a piece of himself was disjointed since then.

Just as he’d thought, his dreams of reconciliation had gone unrealised, but it had happened far sooner than he was expecting. Even though he wasn’t sure whether his father would have even wanted it, Draco played the dutiful son, performing all of the funeral rites that were expected of him to perfection. His mother had clung to him, occasional sobs bubbling out of her, her face shielded from gawking eyes by a thick layer of French silk tulle which was draped stylishly from her wide-brimmed hat—the extravagant item one of the few relics from their former legacy.

After the service, Draco had invited his mother to his flat, an invitation he’d extended on every visit she’d made to Britain since she moved to France. But just like all those other times, Narcissa had politely declined. She never said aloud why she didn’t want to see the new life he’d set up for himself, but some things don’t need to be stated to be understood. Her silence at least afforded them the ability to maintain some semblance of their relationship.

Turning the corner of the path and looping around the small grove of trees that ran along the side of the cemetery, the Malfoy mausoleum came into view. Draco’s steps faltered at the reality of being here again. The place looked just as he remembered, a graceful willow tree standing tall about five metres to the left of the white marble-clad wall of the building. Draco knew that if the sun had been out, the crystalline structures within the marble would have caught the light and sent hundreds of rainbows dancing across the surface. The beauty of the building masking the ugly legacy it was built to house.

Walking up to the building, Draco pulled out his wand and placed the point against the locking mechanism at the door. From inside, the grating sound of the lock sliding open could just barely be heard, the magic of the door recognizing the magical signature coming from Draco’s wand. Tucking the wand away, Draco placed both palms on the heavy wood door and pushed it open, the old hinges letting out a sharp creaking sound.

Draco braced himself and stepped into the echoing interior of the mausoleum. Despite being shielded from the nippy wind in here, Draco felt a chill run down his back. He scanned the walls, the regular squares individually marked by engraved silver plaques, the name of each Malfoy forebear above their dates of birth and death.

He held his hand out, letting the tips of his fingers graze over the patterned divots in the cool metal surface, tracing the letters of names progressing all the way from the 11th century through to the current day. He stopped in front of the plaque bearing his father’s name and he took a seat on the uncomfortably hard bench that sat in the middle of the narrow room.

Draco studied the square, which looked just like all the others in the room, and he was overcome with a feeling of sadness. It wasn’t sadness for the loss of his father, but rather for the fact that his father was just one in a long line of uniform squares. There was nothing that would differentiate his final resting place from any of the others. Draco had always taken for granted that when his time came, he too would be interred in this room, but now he wasn’t so sure that was what he wanted. This birthright that had seemed to him a gift for most of his life had become a set of iron manacles around his wrists, holding him chained to the ghosts of the past.

Draco cleared his throat and the sound echoed around the magically enlarged space. “Hello, Father,” Draco began, a little self-conscious that he was talking to an inanimate being encased behind stone. The stasis spells that were placed on his father’s body would prevent deterioration, but they were cosmetic; he knew that his father—his soul—was gone.

“I’m sorry I haven’t come to see you more often.” Draco paused, trying to formulate the words. “I know you probably won’t believe it, but I miss you. I think about you every day. It’s hard because I find myself wishing you could see what I’ve achieved and hoping you’d be impressed, but you probably wouldn’t be, would you?

“I thought we would have more time. I thought that I could win you over, that I could polish off the Malfoy name and make it shine again and that you would take back your condemnations and embrace me as your son again.

“You should see those kids. The ones that come from the wizarding families usually start off a little nervous and unsure of themselves, like they’re afraid that the Muggles and Muggle-born kids will make fun of them, but it’s very rarely a problem. It’s amazing how open and accepting children are at that age—or, at least how they can be if given the opportunity. It’s not long before the Muggle-born witches and wizards are taking the pure-blood children under their wings and showing them how everything works. Within a couple of weeks, they’re all fast friends, like they’ve been running around together since they were in diapers.

“It makes me wonder about what my life could have been if I had been raised differently. I often wonder if I would have made different choices if I had had the chance to befriend other children that weren’t from families that you had pre-approved. I try not to be angry with you and mother for that, but sometimes I am. Sometimes it feels like my fate was sealed by your choices, and it feels so unfair. Shouldn’t I get to choose my own fate? Or is that naive of me?”

Draco swallowed, his voice thick with emotion. “I want you to know that, even though I stopped coming to see you and sometimes I think I may hate you, I never stopped thinking of you. Even though you disowned me, I never stopped thinking of you as my father. I don’t know if I actually like you anymore, but a part of me will always love you, Dad.”

Draco pulled out his wand and conjured a snow-white flower arrangement, making sure to include some white Narcissus flowers for his mother. He set the flowers in the bronze vase attached to the wall beside his father’s resting place and then sat back down.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, but it was certainly longer than the unforgiving rock of the bench would recommend. Draco sat there pulling up all the happy memories he had of his father, recommitting the details of each one to his memory until the shifting shadow from the setting sun’s path told him nighttime was imminent.

“Goodbye,” Draco said, casting one last look at his father’s name engraved into the plaque. Letting himself out of the mausoleum, Draco locked the heavy door again and buttoned up his jacket against the cool weather.

The sun was just setting behind the trees and the chorus of evening insects was beginning to increase in volume. Draco made his way back towards the entrance, trying not to look at the long rows of variously sized headstones. In the light of day, they had seemed almost beautiful, the cumulative effects of the elements giving each one its own weathered, unique look, but with the twilight shifting into the darkness of dusk, the headstones seemed much more ominous.

Draco had not gone far when a shadowy figure stepped out from behind a particularly tall headstone a little distance away from him.

“Who’s there?” Draco shouted out, hand instinctively moving to grasp his wand, his instincts screaming at him to run.

“You need to pay for what you did, Draco Malfoy.” The voice that floated back to him was low and even, devoid of emotion.

“What do you want from me?” Draco’s voice hitched with his growing fear and he took a small step backwards as he held his wand out in front of him pointed at the threatening figure.

“I want you to suffer as they did.” The black-clad figure took one step forward, closing the distance between them that Draco had just gained.

“That’s not who I am anymore,” Draco pleaded, taking another step back. “I’ve been trying to make amends for what I did for years.” He looked desperately around the cemetery, trying to spot anyone else in the vicinity, but it seemed to be just the two of them.

“It isn’t good enough. You will never be good enough,” the aggressor growled before taking another step towards him.

When the figure took another confident step forward, Draco hazarded a quick glance over his shoulder. The family crypt, with its magically enchanted lock that afforded him protection if he could only get it between himself and this menace, was tantalisingly close.

Cursing the anti-Apparition charms that were in place over the grounds, Draco knew that he would have to be fast if he were going to make it to the safety of the mausoleum in time. Figuring that his attacker would be anticipating a standard defensive jinx, Draco opted for something which he hoped they would not expect and cast a  _ Colloshoo _ , sticking the attacker’s feet to the ground.

Without pausing to see whether it was effective, Draco spun around and began running as fast as he could, arms pumping vigorously as his legs ate up the distance between him and that heavy, protective door.

It seemed like his gambit had worked, buying him a few precious moments of time, but it wasn’t long before he heard the pounding footfalls behind him that told him that he was being pursued. Draco listened carefully, waiting for a shouted curse to alert him that he needed to duck and dodge, but to his surprise, it never came. All he heard was the pounding steps and heavy breaths of his pursuer over the fearful beating of his own heart.

Reaching the mausoleum at last, Draco leapt from the ground up to the top of the short steps, holding his hands out to halt his motion on the door. He looked over his shoulder to see that the figure was still a short distance behind him as he held his wand to the door. The grinding motion of the lock seemed to take an eternity to open, but finally, it stopped and Draco slammed his shoulder against the door, pushing it open and hurtling himself inside.

He’d only just managed to push the door closed from the inside and engage the lock when a heavy body slammed against the door on the other side, pulling a yelp from Draco. Fortunately, even though the heavy metal bar hadn’t fully slid into place, it had extended far enough that it repelled the attempted intrusion. Draco walked backwards slowly, his wand held aloft, eyes peeled wide in terror and frozen on the ancient door. Another squeak of fear gurgled out of him as he felt something brush against his ear, but when he spun away, he found that it was only the soft petals of the flowers that he had conjured earlier.

Pounding fists continued to echo around the space as his attacker shouted a litany of muffled threats at him through the door, the ancient magic working as Draco had hoped to protect the Malfoy bloodline from the threat. He slid along the wall, his back to the rows and columns of squares, eyes glued to the door until he was backed into the corner. Sliding down the wall, Draco pulled up his knees and wrapped his arms around them, curling himself into a protective ball.

The concussive pounding and invectives seemed to amplify in his head until they felt like a hammer, banging away at his sanity from inside his head. Unable to take it anymore, Draco sought relief, dropping his wand beside him and covering his ears with the palms of his hand, hoping to block out the sounds, which felt like they were flaying him alive. If he had been thinking clearly, he would have thought to cast a  _ Muffliato _ , but all rationality had slipped from his grasp and all Draco could think about were those words.

_ It isn’t good enough. _

_ You will never be good enough. _

_ You will never be good. _

Draco didn’t know how long he sat there, curled up around himself, eyes squeezed shut as he felt those words fly around his head like curses, but eventually, he became aware of a soft voice whispering to him. Draco stopped his rocking motion and held himself rigidly still, bracing for a resurgent attack, but all he could hear was a soft murmuring that felt like a balm against his frayed nerves and an odd, gasping sound that he realised was coming from himself.

Taking hold of the buoy those words promised, Draco slid his hands down and lifted his head tentatively to find a middle-aged woman with grey hairs peppered through her curly, otherwise-brown hair, which she had pulled to one side and was hanging over her shoulder in a loose plait. She was kneeling on the hard floor in front of him and was watching him with a barely concealed nervous look.

“It’s okay, dearie. You’re safe now,” the woman cooed softly to him. Moving very slowly, she raised one hand from where it was resting on her thighs and placed it gently on his knee. Draco knew that it wasn’t possible, but it felt like that small, comforting touch sent warmth through his icy limbs.

“Where is he, where did he go?” Draco asked feverishly, eyes sliding past the woman’s face and over her shoulder, terror resurging at the thought that this woman may be harmed because of him. Draco scrambled around looking for his wand before finally finding it and holding it up, ready to defend the both of them against the mysterious figure that attacked him earlier.

The woman quickly withdrew her hand and held them both up in a defensive gesture as Draco held his wand up. “Easy, dearie. I don’t mean you any harm,” she said softly, smiling feebly as her frightened eyes darted between his face and the wand in his hand.

Draco was momentarily confused by the shifting emotions on her face until it dawned on him that, to her, he was the threat right now. He didn’t want her to be scared of him, but nor did he feel comfortable putting his wand away and not having it at hand, so he compromised by setting the smooth length of wood down beside him and setting both of his hands on his knees where she could clearly see them.

“Where did the man go?” Draco asked, working hard to conceal his fear from the woman to put her more at ease.

Now that his wand was not pointed in her general direction, the woman lowered her hands back to her thighs and some of the tension eased out of her expression. “There was nobody here when I came by,” she assured him.

Draco’s eyes shot back to the door, which was now sitting ajar, and he eyed the woman with newfound suspicion. Without wanting to alert her to his intentions, he slipped his hand down so that his wand was within reach. “How did you get in here? The door was locked. Only a Malfoy could open it.”

“Ah, well that’s not exactly correct. Every family has to also provide access to the sexton to their mausoleums.” The woman reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out an over-sized, elaborate brass key, the handle of which was moulded into a metallic skull shape. As he watched, she twiddled the key between her forefinger and thumb. “And that would be me. This here is a skeleton key. It opens up all the doors in the cemetery. We need to have access in case something happens and the families can’t be reached. I was clearing away some leaves with a raking charm and I heard you in here. You sounded like you might be in distress.”

Draco watched as she slipped the key back into the pocket of her robe and then, groaning, pushed herself up from the floor. Taking a seat on the bench, she rubbed at her knees as she sucked in a pained breath. “I hope you don’t mind, but my rickety bones are too old to sit on the hard floor like that. Never get old—pardon me, dearie, I never did get your name?”

“Draco,” he said softly.

The woman smiled kindly at him. “Never get old, Draco. It’s no fun.”

“I’m not entirely sure that is within my control,” he said.

Chuckling at his weak attempt at a joke, she nodded solemnly at him. “I’m afraid you’re probably right about that.” Her easy demeanour was soothing his frayed nerves and chasing away the chill of fear, and he felt the tension start to slip out of his screaming muscles.

“I guess I should go?” Draco asked tentatively. His sense of civility was chastising him that he’d already proven to be enough of a burden for this poor woman who was just trying to do her job.

She eyed him critically before shaking her head. “That won’t do. You look like you are in desperate need of a good, stiff restorative. Would you like to join me for my afternoon tea, Draco?”

Not looking forward to going home, where he would be alone and with nothing to distract himself from the memories of the afternoon, Draco felt a rush of gratitude towards the woman for her kindness. With a small nod and a tremulous smile, Draco pushed himself off the cold floor and shook out his legs, which were stiff.

“Brilliant!” she proclaimed before pushing herself to standing while letting out a few more grunts and muttering under her breath about being older than dirt. Draco held his arm out for her and, surprised, she looked at it for a moment before beaming up at him and looping her arm through his. “Tell me, Draco, do you put milk in your tea?”

“I’m partial to a slice of lemon, actually,” Draco answered, eyes casting around the dark cemetery as he pulled out his wand and cast the most powerful  _ Lumos _ charm he could muster. His eyes scanned the darkness, alert for any shifting shadows, as the sexton sealed up the door.

Turning around and taking his arm once more, they made their way down the steps and set off down the pathway. “That’s the right answer,” she declared, patting his bicep affectionately.


	8. Ron

Ron pushed open the door to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement’s Auror Office and trudged over to his desk, earning himself dirty looks from everyone he passed.

“Why do you smell like Merlin’s sweaty ballsack, Weasley?” Alistair Latham, one of the junior Aurors that had only joined the department two years ago, asked. He pinched his nostrils together theatrically, hamming it up and earning him a titter of laughter from the Auror seated across from him. Ron sent the other Auror a murderous glare and he suddenly became very absorbed in the file that was laying open across his desk, but Alistair either failed to pick up on Ron’s foul mood or had a death wish. “Did you bathe in a troll’s toilet before coming to work or something?”

Ron was tempted to point out to Alistair that trolls didn’t even use toilets, but what was the point? “I was out on a call,” Ron grumbled. “This loony old crone called me all the way up to the Lake District because she was convinced that the JB Army was trying to kidnap her. When I got there, she thought I was one of them and hit me with a  _ Mephitius _ spell before I could stop her.”

“A little old lady got the better of you?” Alistair barely managed to choke out before devolving into laughter, his shoulders heaving with poorly suppressed mirth.

“She blasted me as soon as I opened the door!” Ron defended. “Besides, what am I supposed to do? Throw a Stunner at an old woman? She’d probably have a heart attack and die.” If Ron were honest, he had considered it after the noxious spell had hit him, but he was too busy losing his lunch in her flower garden to follow through on the idea. When the woman realised her mistake, she had fallen all over herself apologising, pleading with Ron to not cart her off to Azkaban. Although Ron was the one hexed, he ended up having to spend half an hour consoling the hysterical woman.

He’d tried every cleaning spell he could think of, including a couple of his mum’s devising—the Standard Book of Spells was substandard when you had seven children to clean up after, she always said—but none of them worked to fully get rid of the putrid odour. He now smelled like an entire den of skunks had taken issue with him, which was both fortunately and unfortunately a vast improvement.

Before Alistair could come back at him with yet another oh-so-clever quip, Robard’s office door swung open. “Latham, don’t you have that report done yet?” Robards barked. Alistair’s laughter desiccated and he sat up straighter, picking up the blue feather quill from his desk and dipping it into his inkpot before writing feverishly. Ron’s smirk of satisfaction melted away when Robards continued, “Weasley, get in here.”

Ron gulped nervously, wondering if he could beg for a few minutes to go take a shower in the department’s locker room, but one look at Robards and he thought better than to ask. Trudging slowly towards his boss’s office, Ron took note of the exact moment his temporary tang registered with the imposing man because his nose quirked up several times as he sampled the air.

“Sorry, Sir,” Ron apologised meekly as he arrived in front of the other man. “There was a bit of a… mishap out in the field.”

“Hmmm,” Robards hummed, looking unimpressed, but he motioned for Ron to enter the office. As Ron stepped over the threshold, his steps faltered for a moment when he saw that they weren’t alone in the space. Seated in one of the two chairs across the desk from Robards’s seat was a head of flaxen hair that Ron hadn’t seen in over five years, but that he recognised immediately.

“Malfoy,” Ron bit out, the old animosity surging up inside him as if it was only yesterday that Malfoy and his cronies were setting the Room of Requirement alight with Fiendfyre.

Draco’s face betrayed his confusion at the sudden intrusion of stench that was expanding to fill the room. There was no doubt where the smell was coming from and Ron braced himself for a snide comment from his old school bully, but to his surprise, Draco schooled his features and nodded briskly at him. “Auror Weasley.”

“Take a seat, Weasley,” Robards instructed as he circled around to take a seat in his own chair. Ron threw a dirty look at Draco’s profile, whose gaze was now fixed on Ron’s boss, and then skulked over to the empty chair and collapsed into it. A satisfied smirk slipped over Ron’s mouth when Malfoy shifted almost imperceptibly away from him and his lower jaw dropped open, allowing him to breathe through his mouth rather than his nose. Ron was almost grateful in that moment for Mrs Battsworth’s impressive hexing abilities.

“What’s going on, Sir? What’s he doing here?” Ron asked, jerking his thumb in Malfoy’s direction.

“I understand that you two have a… complicated history, but lose the attitude,” Robards barked, pointing a finger at Ron, who crossed his arms in front of his chest before jerking his head in acknowledgement. “Good. Mr Malfoy here has opened a harassment complaint with us. He claims that someone has been stalking him and that their attacks have been escalating.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Ron saw Draco tense at Robards’s use of the word ‘claims’ and he seized on it. “What proof does he have? Malfoy has always been prone to crying wolf. We have enough on our hands with the Army and finding out how they knew where we would be keeping Westenberg without wasting time chasing some imaginary boogeyman!” By the time Ron had finished, he was practically shouting and he was perched on the edge of his chair, arms gesticulating angrily.

“I am well aware that the Aurors have their hands full with the recent death of the witness that was under your protection.”

Ron bristled at Draco’s implied accusation that he had failed in his duty. “We did everything we could to protect him!” Ron shouted, looking to Robards for back-up. Harry had been gravely wounded and Ron had gotten Westenberg out of there as quickly as he could, but it hadn’t been enough. “Harry almost  _ died _ !”

“Weasley, calm down,” Robards said, his face a mixture of compassion and frustration.

Draco still wouldn’t look at him, directing his words to Robards alone. “I only meant that I wouldn’t waste your time with a frivolous complaint. I’ve had the nagging suspicion that I was being followed for months now, but twice now they have chased me and I’ve only just barely managed to get away. I’m afraid that my life is in danger.”

When Ron no longer seemed like he was going to explode out of his seat and attack Draco himself, Robards turned his attention to the pale-haired man. “Are there any witnesses to these events, Mr Malfoy? Anyone besides yourself that can attest to the events?”

“The first time the man chased me it was late at night. There were a few people on the street and in the Underground station that I ran into, but I didn’t get any of their names. I’m assuming they were all Muggles. The second time he chased me was in the cemetery when I went to visit my father’s grave. There was nobody around when he chased me into the mausoleum, but the sexton found me shortly after. She might have seen something, though he seemed to have left by the time she stumbled across me.”

“So...no,” Ron said snarkily, boiling Draco’s long-winded excuses down to their simple conclusion. He scowled when Robards drilled him with a look of disapproval.

“I’m sorry. Next time I’ll just let him attack me so that it makes your job easier, shall I?” Draco asked, finally turning his head to shoot Ron a venomous look. The snarky question was the first sign of the old Malfoy since Ron had walked into the office and he experienced a thrill of satisfaction that he had been right. Malfoy was the same obnoxious git that he had been in Hogwarts.

Before Ron could answer that he certainly wouldn’t blame someone for wanting to attack him, Robards cut him off. “Mr Malfoy, we’ll start looking into this right away. Are you comfortable staying in your home? It might be best if you stay with friends or family for a time until we can investigate who might be targeting you.”

Ron snorted and muttered under his breath, “I doubt he even has friends.”

Draco’s lips thinned as he shot Ron a dirty look, obviously having heard what Ron said. Letting out a loud gust of air through his nose, he turned back to Robards. “Sir, if you don’t mind me saying, I would prefer if someone other than Auror Weasley was assigned to my case.” He ignored Ron’s grumble of annoyance and pushed on, “I fear that, given our fraught history—” Ron opened his mouth to interject that their history being  _ fraught _ was entirely Malfoy’s fault, but Draco rushed to cut him off, voice rising a little, “which I will admit is largely my fault—Auror Weasley will not be able to remain impartial.”

Ron was conflicted: on one hand, he wanted nothing less than to spend even a minute more in Malfoy’s company, but on the other, he was offended that Malfoy had implied—twice now—that he was total crap at his job.

“I see.” Robards turned to level his stare at Ron. “What say you, Auror Weasley? Do you agree with Mr Malfoy?”

“No, Sir. Malfoy’s concerns are baseless. I’m perfectly capable of investigating his case.” Ron kept his gaze trained on his boss, but he could see Malfoy’s head whip around towards him out of the corner of his eye.

“Good. Auror Weasley will be assigned to your case as of now, Mr Malfoy.” Robards pulled open the upper left drawer of his desk and removed a round, leather satchel. Untying the leather band holding it closed, Robards pulled out two silver bands. “Hold your hand out, please.”

Ron held out his hand and took the proffered band, slipping the band of metal around his wrist. Malfoy looked highly reluctant, tentatively reaching out his hand and taking the silver bracelet, but merely inspecting it closely rather than donning it. “What is it?”

Robards gestured between the two bracelets. “They’re linked. If you’re in danger, the bracelets will heat up, alerting Auror Weasley that you’re in need of help. He will hasten to your location in that event.”

Draco still looked dubious. “How will he know where I am?”

“That’s not any of your concern, Malfoy. I’ll be there, that’s all you need to know. Wear the bracelet or don’t, it’s no skin off my back either way.” Ron gritted his teeth together, just about out of patience for the other man. He stared Draco down, waiting to see whether Malfoy would accept the offer of help or whether he would tell Ron to shove it up his arse.

Draco glared at him, but to Ron’s shock, he slid the rigid metal hoop over his wrist. Ron only caught the barest glimpse of the cold, metallic silver against Draco’s pale skin before he slipped it inside the cuff of his shirt.  _ French cuffs, what a pretentious wanker _ , he thought as his eyes snagged on the cufflinks which seemed to be engraved with an elegant script.

“Thank you, Head Auror Robards,” Draco said formally, holding his hand out for Robards to shake. Ron was sure that Malfoy was less than thrilled with Ron being assigned to his case, but he seemed perfectly polite right now.

Robards spread his hands on his desk and pushed himself up before taking Draco’s outstretched hand. “We’ll be in touch as soon as we have any updates. In the meantime, it would be best if you took basic precautions. Try to stick to public places; avoid going out alone, especially at night; keep your doors, windows, and Floo locked.”

Malfoy seemed to hesitate before speaking, “I have commitments and people that are counting on me. I won’t let this culprit make me break my word.” Robards looked like he was about to argue, but Draco spoke forcefully, “I’ll take every precaution I can that won’t prevent me from fulfilling my obligations, but I refuse to let them turn me into a recluse.”

Robards looked less than impressed with Malfoy’s attitude, his scowl clearly stating that he found the other man to be cavalier and reckless. “You’re a grown man, so that’s your choice. Now, why don’t you go take a seat at Auror Weasley’s desk and he’ll be out to gather information from you in a minute.”

“Thank you.” Draco turned stiffly, addressing Ron, “Which desk is yours?”

“Over in the far corner. The one with the green sweater hanging on the back of the chair.” Ron made no move to stand up or even deign to look up at him. Malfoy didn’t say anything else and Ron had to strain to hear his footfalls, the no-doubt expensive leather barely making a sound on the hard, marble floor.

In mutual understanding, they didn’t say anything while Gawain pulled out his wand and gesticulated it through the air, closing the door that Malfoy had left open. An additional motion and the bustling noises of the Auror squad room blurred into the telltale hush of a  _ Muffliato _ .

“What’s your take on him?” Robards asked.

Ron managed to quash his instinct to roll his eyes, but only just barely. “Malfoy’s always been a fan of blowing things out of proportion. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s making the whole thing up.”

“Hmmm,” his boss hummed, eyeing the tall blond man through the glass windows of the office. Ron turned in his chair to see Draco sitting with his legs crossed on the chair at Ron’s desk. Ron found his eyes pulled to the fingers of Draco’s left hand, which were tapping rhythmically on the outside of his thigh. Ron was just turning back around to face the Head Auror when he continued, “If he is faking it, then get to the bottom of it, but I trust that you weren’t just blowing smoke up my arse earlier? I expect you to act like a professional and investigate this in an unbiased manner.”

Ron agreed solemnly, “I can do that.”

“Good, because if it turns out that he isn’t lying and that someone really is targeting him, then it could be a really precarious situation for us. The public has started to question why we aren’t doing more about the Army’s escalating violent attacks, and the Alliance is only fuelling it, accusing us of sitting back and letting the Army do our jobs for us.”

Ron stared at his boss, confused. He had stopped picking up the Daily Prophet ever since they had printed a full-page story on the front page about the Westenberg attack and had basically accused Ron of running away in fear and that Westenberg’s death had been his fault. Since the only witnesses had been himself, Westenberg, and their attackers to the Killing Curse, they’d even implied that perhaps Ron should also be under investigation as he may have been in on the attack for some reason.

“One minute they’re arguing that the Ministry is too lenient on pure-bloods and offer them too many special privileges, and now they’re saying that we’re organising their murders? That doesn’t even make sense!” Ron spat angrily.

Robards didn’t look nearly as aggravated about it as Ron felt he should. “Faulty logic and arguments are not at all uncommon with extremist groups, and once you get people riled up, it’s easy to fuel that fire with any makeshift accusation. The Alliance had a reasonable argument when they started, but now that the wizarding population has been primed to view us with suspicion, it will be much easier to make them believe far more nefarious of us.”

“Wait, wait, wait. You  _ agreed _ with the Alliance?” Ron asked incredulously.

Robards didn’t rush to defend himself, but rather flatly returned, “You didn’t?”

“NO!” Ron shouted but thanks to the  _ Muffliato _ that was still in place, no curious heads turned to look at them through the office’s windows. Moderating his voice, he continued, “No, I don’t think they are right. After the War, loads of pure-bloods were carted off to Azkaban and were forced to pay reparations for what they did.”

“That’s true,” Robards conceded, but it was clear by the look on his face that he was nowhere near convinced by Ron’s argument. “However, the same thing happened after the first War and we were right back where we started a handful of years later. There were a lot of leniencies shown towards people that left a lot of guilty, dangerous people out free. I’m sure part of that desire for leniency was because nobody wanted to repeat the mistakes that had been made with people like Stanley Shunpike and Sirius Black, where innocent people were found guilty of crimes they hadn’t committed, but I’m also sure that some palms were greased as well.”

“So, what then? Should we just hand over the keys to the Ministry to the Just Blood Alliance and let them have a go at running the country for a while?” Ron asked sarcastically. He knew he was pushing his luck with his boss, but didn’t particularly care at that point. If they had all suffered for so long and lost so many loved ones, like his brother Fred, and nothing had actually changed, then what was the point?

Robards eyed him for a moment before smiling sadly. “Sometimes I forget how young you actually are. Things are changing, Weasley. It is getting better, but it’s unrealistic to expect to reverse thousands of years of ingrained beliefs overnight. The Just Blood groups are just tired of waiting and they want to see rapid action now. I can understand that; I’m not so old that all of my hope has been worn away into cynicism.”

“So you actually do think that they should be allowed a say in how things are done?” Ron asked, incredulous. Robards had never betrayed any sign that he sympathised with the Alliance’s position and had always pushed hard for them to track down the people responsible for the Army’s attacks since they’d started. Ron had just assumed that, like himself, he viewed them all as extremists.

“I didn’t say that. I’m old and wise enough to know that radical changes can be exciting, but also very dangerous. If they got their way, I’m not sure wizarding society, as a whole, would be any better. But I do think that they serve an important function. The changes in the right direction will stagnate if nobody keeps pushing us to do better. We’ll all get complacent and start congratulating ourselves on a job well done when it’s only half-finished.”

Ron considered that for a moment and found that he actually kind of agreed with that. He knew well how easy it was to fall into old patterns, whether it was something harmless like his mum constantly asking whether he’d set the table, or something more toxic, like how he and Hermione always seemed to return right back to the same handful of fights before they’d separated. “Yeah, I suppose that’s true,” Ron conceded.

“You’d better get out there. It looks like he’s getting into a right fit.” Robards nodded in the direction of the window, biting down on an amused smile. Ron turned to see Draco Malfoy glaring at them from the other side of the window, arms crossed in front of him; he’d evidently gotten tired of waiting at Ron’s desk and had come to fetch him.

Ron breathed a sigh and then stood up, bracing himself to deal with Malfoy, but before he could leave the office, Robards tacked on something else, “Oh, and I have some good news. The Healers are saying that Potter is making an excellent recovery and he should be back in the office by the middle of next week.” Ron’s face lit up at the news, but Robards hastened to continue, “Mind, he’ll be assigned to desk duty for a few weeks yet, no fieldwork.”

Ron didn’t even care, though he was sure that Harry would be none too pleased to be relegated to a quill-pusher. He was just thrilled that he’d be able to see his best friend’s face every day again soon. “That’s brilliant!” he beamed.

The clatter and chatter of the office rose in volume as Robards cancelled the Muffliato and Ron sauntered over and pulled open the office door, where an annoyed Malfoy awaited him. Before Malfoy could pipe in with a snide remark, Ron strode past, waving for him to follow. “I have a few questions to ask.”

A while later, Ron was sitting with a list of all of the names and contact information of Malfoy’s friends (there weren’t many) and people he’d had contact with recently (there was a horrifying amount.) After asking Malfoy a few basic questions, he’d asked for the list thinking it would be a handful of people, but to his surprise, Malfoy had pulled out an address book and a day planner and had asked for a length of parchment and quill. Ron couldn’t wait for Harry to get back to work because he didn’t know how he was going to tackle this otherwise. 

Ron had seized the opportunity and had excused himself to run to the changing rooms and take a quick shower while Draco wrote up the list. Fortunately, that had seemed to help wash away the majority of the noxious smell, but it was also possible that Ron had just acclimated to it. When he had returned to his desk, wet hair combed back and soaking his collar, Malfoy had looked up and Ron had caught a strange look wisp across his face, but before Ron could get a read on it, it was gone. Malfoy hadn’t said anything but had just handed him the lengthy roll of parchment.

“So this is all of them, then?” Ron asked.

Draco nodded as he tucked the black leather-bound address book and the planner back into the inside pocket of his jacket. “Yes, that’s everybody. Well, except for the children, but it won’t be any of them, and I don’t want you questioning them.”

“Children?” Ron asked distractedly, eyes scanning the list of names that were written in a tight, neat script. “You have kids?”

“Not my children, no,” Draco said. “Not biologically.”

Ron hadn’t seen any name that jumped out of him, which was not surprising since many of them were marked with a “(M-)”, which Draco had said he used to indicate that they were Muggles that didn’t know of the wizarding world’s existence. There was a surprising amount of them.

Ron set the parchment aside and stared across the desk at Malfoy. “So you run some sort of after-school programme for children, is that right? Like a daycare?”

“No, it’s not just a ‘daycare’. I mean, technically, yes, it does serve that function as well, but that is not the main goal,” Draco bristled. Ron hadn’t been trying to offend Malfoy, but he seemed to have hit that mark anyway. He watched the other man, amused, as he snappily explained his work, “The objective is to provide a safe environment where children from pure-blood, half-blood, and Muggle-born families can socialise together from an early age. To see that they’re not all that different.”

Ron stared at the other man, his surprise probably evident on his face. He hadn’t really kept tabs on what Malfoy had gotten up to after the war, but if he had been asked to guess, he wouldn’t have guessed that in a million years.

“And we have some purely Muggle children as well, but mostly in the older programmes. I didn’t want to risk any accidental magic incidents with the younger students. We have one Muggle teenager that has a proficiency for computers, so she’s been teaching some of the older kids some basic programming.” Draco’s eyes lit up and a soft smile graced his lips as he elaborated more on the program. It was obvious he was very proud of it, but it wasn’t the type of pride Ron was used to seeing on Malfoy; this was pride on behalf of other people’s accomplishments and not in himself.

“What about some of the other kids? Maybe there’s someone spying on you from within your organization?” Ron suggested, his Auror-trained mind just trying to label and identify all the potential areas of weakness.

“It’s not any of the kids,” Draco ground out, his voice sharp as knives and his eyes narrowing with anger.

Ron backed off, obviously having provoked a protective instinct in the other man. “Alright, got it. We have enough names here to keep us busy for now anyway.”

Draco reeled in his temper and closed his eyes, breathing deeply for a moment before opening them again. When he did, the neutral mask that he had mostly worn the whole time they had been sitting here was back in place. “Do you have everything you need from me?”

“Yeah, I think I’m good. I’ll start talking to people today and I’ll let you know if anything turns up.”

Draco stood up, reached into the back pocket of his trousers, and pulled out his wallet. Flipping it open, he slid a creamy white business card out. Grabbing the quill that he’d used earlier, he scratched something out onto the back of it. “Here’s my card. It has my mobile and phone number, and I’ve put my address on the back there.”

“You have a mobile?” slipped out of Ron before he could stop it.

Ron looked up and he thought he saw the smallest quiver of Draco’s lips, but he couldn’t be sure. In a droll tone, Draco said, “Obviously, or I wouldn’t have put it on the card.”

Ron felt a heat of flush, but it was more embarrassment than anger. Obviously, he knew that... he had just been so taken aback that Draco Malfoy, of all people, would have a Muggle mobile phone that the incredulous question slipped out before his brain had caught up with his mouth. Clearing his throat, Ron rushed to get past the awkward moment, “Floo?”

“Don’t have one, I’m afraid.” Draco shrugged.

“You have a mobile, but you don’t have a Floo?” His mouth had run ahead of him again. This time, he was sure Malfoy’s lips quirked.

“You obviously don’t live in London or you wouldn’t be surprised by that. Most postage-sized flats don’t come with a fireplace, hence, no Floo.” Draco pulled a set of worn-in gloves from the pocket of his long coat and started pulling them on. “Sorry for the inconvenience, but you’ll have to reach me by one of the other means there. I must be going now as I have another appointment to get to.”

Draco held out his right hand, the left one still holding its glove, and Ron reluctantly shook it. Draco’s hands were cold, as if he’d just come in from the chilly October weather, even though he’d been inside for at least an hour now.

“I’ll be in touch,” Ron promised.


	9. Draco

“Tell me again, why did I think this would be such a brilliant idea?” Draco huffed out as he pushed himself up from tying yet another pair of skates.

“Thank you, Mr Malfoy,” Amber, the little girl whose skates he’d just fastened, chirped before she stood up from the wooden bench and waddled across the rubber flooring towards the gate that led out onto the skating rink.

“Don’t be such a grinch,” Elliott said as he chuckled at Draco, who had pulled out a custom-embroidered handkerchief with his initials in elegant script on one corner and was patting the sweat away from his hairline. “The kids are really excited to go skating.”

Draco felt a tug on his arm and he looked down to see another young child, a five-year-old boy named Spencer who was particularly small for his age, wobbling unsteadily, his ankles unsupported in the too-loose hockey skates. Draco smiled warmly down at the small boy before hoisting him up by the armpits and plunking him down on the bench. Draco dropped down to his knees once more, thinking it was a small mercy that at least the rubber flooring wasn’t murder on his knees.

Draco set about tightening each pass of the laces in turn as he spoke, “That’s true. It’s costing us a pretty penny, but I hope the kids will have fun and make some good memories.”

Every year, Draco’s Good Faith Outreach Centre threw a holiday party for all of the children that were signed up for their various programmes. In the past, they would just decorate one of their rental spaces and have a party, complete with buffet and a present for each of the children, Transfiguration came in handy for creating a large number of presents without spending a small fortune, leaving just the food and decorations to pay for out of pocket.

This year, with Ms Saylor’s generous donation, the funds that he had earmarked for the music programme had suddenly been freed up and he had decided to put them towards the holiday party. He knew it would be the perfect location when he’d gone to check out the Natural History Museum and had seen the fairytale-like ice rink with the bright lights and jolly sounds of the Golden Carousel which was set up on the other side of the rink reflecting off the ice.

The place was bustling with happy skaters, fairy lights twinkling above their heads from the barren branches of a large tree that stretched over the ice. In the middle, an immense tree was enclosed, decorated in hundreds of violet and silver ornaments, its illuminated silver star topper level with the café on the second floor of the museum that overlooked the rink. They would skate for a few hours, or until everyone was nippy from the cold, and then they would retire to the café for hot mugs of cocoa, present opening, and festive carolling. He had booked the entire café for their private function, but the skating rink was still open to the public.

Fortunately, Draco managed to negotiate a terrific rate. It helped that they were holding the party in late November since Draco wanted to make sure that all the kids could attend, holding it early in case anyone was travelling during the holidays. It also helped that the Museum’s booking manager was a sweet, naive young woman who seemed susceptible to Draco’s silver-tongued charisma. He had flirted shamelessly with the woman until he’d managed to talk her down to a price that the programme could afford. As a 'thank you’, Draco had given her a glass ornament that he had etched the programme’s logo onto using magic when he had come back to sign the contract. She thanked him for the gift and Draco had deftly side-stepped her casual hints that she would be receptive to an invitation to go on a date—the bauble would have to suffice.

Finally, he and Elliott and the other programme coordinators had managed to get everyone strapped in and bundled up, many of the older kids pitching in to help with the younger ones. They distributed the bright orange, woollen beanies that Draco had ordered, each emblazoned with the Outreach Centre’s logo—but more importantly, such a horrendously lurid shade of orange that it would be easy to keep track of the children—and then they were ready.

Draco helped the smaller children onto the ice, pairing them with someone more experienced if they seemed unsteady on their feet. Finally, it was only him and Spencer left. “What do you say, Spencer?”

Spencer looked nervously at the ice and nibbled on his lower lip. “Could you skate with me? Only for a little while,” the little boy asked timidly. Spencer was a little self-conscious about his size and he was always eager to prove himself, so it must have cost him a lot to issue the request.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Draco said, breathing a sigh of relief. “I’m quite nervous that I will fall, so I’m glad you’ll help me out.”

The little boy grinned happily at him and took Draco’s mittened hand gratefully when he offered it. Together, they made their way shakily out onto the ice; Draco may have been hamming it up a bit to assuage Spencer’s nerves earlier, but it had actually been quite a few years since he had gone ice skating and he didn’t have to play-act at being unsteady on the thin, sharp metal blades. After a few circumrotations around the rink, both of them were gliding along much more confidently.

“Are you okay by yourself, Mr Malfoy?” Spencer asked, glancing quickly up at Draco before training his eyes back on the scratched surface of the ice a few metres in front of them.

Draco chuckled to himself before reassuring the boy, “I think I’ll manage on my own if you want to catch up with your friends now.” Draco craned his neck to see the green and purple puffy jackets of two of Spencer’s friends. They had glided past them a few moments ago and Spencer had been eyeing them longingly since then.

“Are you sure?” he asked, eyes darting back and forth from Draco to his friends, who he could just make out between the clasped hands of the couple skating between them.

“Go on now, have fun,” Draco instructed as he relinquished his grip on Spencer’s hand.

“Thanks, Mr Malfoy!” Spencer called after him as he picked up speed to catch up with his friends.

“Go around!” Draco called at the retreating figure, but it was too late and he watched as, rather than skating around, Spencer ducked under the couple’s clasped hands and skated through them. “Sorry about that,” Draco offered, but the couple merely laughed and told him not to worry about it.

Draco skated around alone for a while, keeping his eye on the spattering of bright orange hats around the rink. He acted as the judge in a sprinting race between three of the children, stifling an inappropriate laugh when one of the competitors tripped and went sliding across the finish line. Fortunately, the girl wasn’t hurt and it had been so fun that the kids commandeered one side of the rink, right beside the boards, and set up a game where they would skate to pick up speed and then drop to the ice and slide along on various body parts until they ran out of momentum. That and a hormone-addled couple of teenagers that Draco started to wonder if he would need a Severing charm to get their lips separated were the extent of the issues he had encountered so far. The kids were excited but they were on, if not their best, their most decent behaviour.

Draco had just looped around the Christmas tree when a familiar mop of red hair came into view through the other skating figures. An unidentifiable jumble of emotions roiled in his belly as he darted in and out of the passing people and he made his way over to the side board of the rink where Ronald Weasley was standing.

It had been a few weeks since Draco had filed his complaint of harassment and Ronald Weasley had reentered his life. The man had been borderline hostile during that first meeting and Draco had held out hope that Weasley would come to his senses and hand his case over to someone else, but to his chagrin, that hadn’t happened and Draco had stopped hoping by this point.

Weasley had begun his investigation by crawling farther up Draco’s arse than even his most well-endowed lovers had managed to go. Pansy had been less than thrilled when he showed up at her home and drilled her with questions for the better part of an hour. She had torn a strip out of Draco the next time they got together, demanding he at least provide her with a warning the next time he stuck a Weasel on her.

He also had to field a number of concerned inquiries from his various counsellors and tutors in the outreach programme, all of which informed him that Weasley had contacted them to ask questions about Draco’s daily routine and if they’d seen anything out of the ordinary. Draco had always been a rather private person when it came to his own problems, so many of them came to him with a mixture of concern and hurt feelings that he hadn’t felt comfortable enough to confide in them. Draco silently cursed the red-haired pain in the arse in his head as he worked to assure them all that he was fine and he was just being careful.

“What are you doing here, Weasley?” Draco bit out through a false smile as he slid up to the board where the other man was leaning and watching the skaters.

“I’m here for our weekly check-in,” Ron explained, a weirdly pleasant look on his face. He seemed unable to focus on Draco for long, his eyes wandering back to the blur of figures, their laughing voices drifting past the two of them. Draco seized the opportunity his distraction offered to study the man for a moment.

Back in Hogwarts, Ron had always been gangly and awkward, his limbs seeming too long for the rest of his body and his face rather too oblong. In the intervening years, Ron had filled out, his shoulders looked much broader and, even under the brown leather jacket he was wearing, he looked strong. Not that overpumped look that muscleheads at the gym seemed to covet, but a sinewy strength that allowed him a blend of strength and agility.

Unfortunately, where his body had definitely undergone improvements, his hair seemed to have taken two large steps back. It was far too long to suit him and he had probably started the day with it slicked back, but the styling had long since given up the ghost and it was now fluttering around his face at the whim of the wind. One strand had snagged on Ron’s left eyelash, shifting with every blink. Draco found himself wanting to reach out and pull it free but kept his hands within the safe confines of his mittens. Weasley would probably interpret it as an act of aggression and seize the opportunity to hex him all the way to next Christmas.

“I thought I told you that I would be unavailable today,” Draco said. He was sure that he had told Ron that he was busy, but his week had been quite frantic as he had finalised the planning for the party, so it was possible that it had slipped his mind. “And how did you know where I would be?”

Ron yanked his eyes away from the skaters and turned an amused look at Draco. “You gave me a copy of your calendar, remember?” Ron always looked vaguely pleased with himself when Draco seemed perturbed. The immature git.

Rather than feeding the flames of Ron’s childish behaviour, Draco pasted on a faux-friendly smile. “I am very much looking forward to hearing what the latest progress has been on the case, but I really need to focus on the children now, so maybe—”

“Which are yours?” Ron asked, interrupting him. He looked over the rink full of people for a few seconds before adding, “Orange beanies?” Draco confirmed his guess and Ron chuckled. “Thought so. Looks like they could all be Chudley fans.”

“If that were true, it would probably quadruple the Chudley fanbase,” Draco said, smirking. Judging by the stormy look that descended on Ron’s face, he was still a sucker for that lost cause of a team.

“Whatever, Malfoy,” Ron grumbled and Draco regretted baiting him. Ron had seemed in an almost friendly mood when he had arrived and now the distant, reserved tone was back in his voice. “Let’s do this fast. We’re still conducting interviews from your list. Nothing new has turned up on our end. Any new incidents on yours?”

Since the encounter in the cemetery, Draco had not had any other encounters. He still got the sensation sometimes that he was being watched but he was never able to identify anyone, so he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was imagining it. Draco didn’t feel like dealing with Weasley looking at him like he was a few thestrals short of a herd, so he decided not to mention it.

“No, I haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary since we last spoke.”

“Hmm, well that’s good.” Ron’s tone bristled at Draco as if he were explicitly accusing Draco of fabricating this whole thing. As if Draco would subject himself to this prolonged interaction with Weasley on a whim. He’d never been much for masochism.

Draco clenched his teeth together to prevent himself from sniping at the other man. When the flare of anger passed, he coldly dismissed the Auror. “Thanks for checking in. I’ll see you at the usual time at my office.”

Before Weasley could make his escape, Anne and Jessica, two twelve-year-olds from his Muggle Studies integration programme, skated up to them with mischievous grins on their face.

“Is he your boyfriend, Mr Malfoy?” Jessica asked, her demure act not fooling Draco for one moment, especially since Anne seemed about to burst in a fit of giggles. She kept shooting quick looks at Ron and Draco before retreating back into the loose scarf wrapped around her neck.

“No, he is not my boyfriend, Jessica. This is Ronald Weasley. He’s a…” Draco stumbled, unsure how to describe his relationship to Weasley. He didn’t want the kids to be frightened.

“Friend. I’m a friend of Mal—err...Draco’s,” Ron piped in. His face contorted in a weird look for a second as he said Draco’s first name, as if it didn’t feel right in his mouth.

Anne’s head shot up and she stared at Ron with naked adoration on her face. “Wait, you’re  _ the _ Ron Weasley? Like on the chocolate cards?”

Jessica turned to give her friend a searching look. Sotto voce, she asked her friend, “What chocolate cards?”

Anne shot a panicked look at Draco. Though the two girls were incredibly close, Anne always had to be careful what she said around the other girl because Jessica was a Muggle and didn’t know the wizarding world existed. It was a risk, having Muggles and witches and wizards mingling together in the programme, but the first-hand knowledge and experience that the magical children gained from their Muggle friendships were invaluable and worth the risk. Still, they held back on full Muggle integration groupings until the children were older and the magical children would be less likely to inadvertently let too much information slip.

This was Anne’s first year in the Muggle integration programme and she and Jessica quickly became thick as thieves, despite only knowing each other for a handful of months. Slips of the tongue were bound to happen. Draco was labouring to think of a reasonable explanation when Ron jumped in and smoothed it over, “When I was younger, I had a brief moment in the spotlight and got featured in a collectable card that came with a chocolate bar. You know, like those baseball cards that they have in America?”

Jessica scrutinised him for a moment, looking dubious. “Well I’ve never heard of you,” she said, dragging out the ‘I’ and making it clear that she found anything outside of her scope of experience highly unlikely to be very impressive. “Were you a football player or something?”

“Sadly, no. I was the skip on the Upper Midlands Region curling team,” Ron said, shrugging apologetically at the child.

“And they put you on a collector’s card for that?” she asked sceptically.

“Yeah, though the chocolate was kind of crap, to be honest. Never was very popular,” Ron grinned self-deprecatingly and Draco couldn’t help but be amused. Anne, fear forgotten at her misstep, was grinning widely at Ron.

Jessica looked between the three of them and probably determined that she was missing out on the joke. Huffing, she said, “This is boring. Let’s go.” She didn’t wait to see what Anne said before pushing off and drifting away.

Anne looked longingly between her best friend’s retreating back and Ron for a few seconds before shrugging. “It was nice to meet you, Mr Weasley!” she hurriedly said before taking off after her friend, looking back to wave at them over her shoulder.

“That spunky girl is a Muggle, I take it?” Ron asked, turning towards Draco and gesturing over his shoulder where the two girls had disappeared.

“She is. And spunky doesn’t do her justice,” Draco snorted. Jessica had more fire in her belly than a Norwegian Ridgeback, but at least her endless self-confidence seemed to be rubbing off onto Anne, who seemed much more outgoing and confident since she’d befriended the brash girl. Pulling his gaze away from the two girls, who were now giggling as they attempted to do spins, he cocked an eyebrow and shot Ron a quizzical look. “Curling?”

Ron laughed as he scratched at his temple. “It was the first thing that came to mind. My dad went through a phase where he became obsessed with the game. He turned our garden patch into a home rink and transfigured a set of old cooking pots into stones. Mum made him take it down though when Fred and George put a Sticking spell on one of the handles and Ginny didn’t notice until she got dragged halfway down the ice.”

A warm look washed over Ron’s face at the memory until it was diluted by something more complex. It took Draco a moment until he remembered that Fred had been one of the casualties in the Battle of Hogwarts. Being an only child, Draco didn’t know the joys of having a sibling, but he could imagine the sorrow of losing one was immense.

Draco looked away, granting Ron a moment of privacy for his grief. “Well, it was quite clever. Thank you for playing along.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Ron said, the awkward moment stretching between them. “Anyway, I’ll leave you to enjoy your party now.”

“Okay,” Draco agreed. The two of them stood there for a few moments, Draco feeling as if he should say something else, but Ron resolved the issue for him by taking his leave.

“Okay. Later, Malfoy,” Ron said, turning his back and walking away. Draco pushed off from the boards and skated away, letting the crowd swallow him up and fighting the urge to look back at Weasley’s retreating form. Crossing his arms behind his back, Draco fingered the cool, metal band around his wrist absentmindedly as he looped around for another round.

His mind was wandering, not really paying much attention to his surroundings, when two figures suddenly came to a halt in front of him and he had to execute a quick swerve so as not to crash into them.

“Sorry, Mr Malfoy!” the small boy in a bright green puffy jacket sing-songed up at him.

“That’s fine, Troy. It was my fault. I wasn’t paying close attention,” Draco smiled reassuringly down at the boy who had his arm looped together with Daniel, a pure-blood boy that had recently started attending the programme. “Are you having fun, Daniel?”

The blond child nodded eagerly. “I’ve only fallen four times,” the little boy held up his other hand, the fingers not visible inside his bright red mitten, but the thumb tucked in against the palm.

“That’s quite impressive,” Draco congratulated him. Daniel had been very nervous about the party because he had never gone ice skating before. As Draco looked down at the two boys, a stray thought nagged at his mind. “Boys, where’s Spencer?”

The last Draco had seen the boy, he had been rushing off to join Daniel and Troy, but now there was no sign of him.

Troy shrugged, unconcerned. “He said his feet hurt so he was going to go sit down.”

“When was this?” Draco asked as he scanned the crowd anxiously. There was nothing he could point to that would justify the dense thud of fear that had landed in his gut, but he had a nagging instinct that Spencer might be in danger.

“Maybe five minutes ago?” Daniel offered, concern creeping into his expression. “Is Spencer in trouble?”

Draco composed his face, making sure none of the fear that was building inside of him showed on it. At least his checkered past made him highly skilled in that area. “No boys, he’s not in any trouble. I’m just going to go check in on him and see if he’s okay. You two stay together, alright?” Just then, Elliott skated by, apparently leading a makeshift congo line, about twenty of their kids trailing behind him like the slithering tail of a great snake.

“Why don’t you two go join the others?” he suggested, pointing at the line of laughing children as they glided past them.

“Okay!” the two boys cheered together before teetering off to latch on to the last child in the string.

Draco set off at a brisk pace, scanning the multitude of people for any sign of Spencer. He was vaguely aware of the growing warmth wrapped around his wrist, but he paid it no mind as he began to feel a little frantic. At last, he spotted the blue and red stripes of Spencer’s jacket about halfway across the rink from where he stood and he ducked and dodged, trying to maintain a line of sight on the child as people crossed in front of him.

An ice-cold hand seized his heart as he saw Spencer take the hand of a tall man dressed entirely in black and began making their way towards the gate that led off the rink. Draco dropped down, ready to push off the ice and hustle over before the man could lead Spencer away, but just then, Elliott skated in front of him and Draco was cut off by the string of children laughing merrily.

It was probably only seconds before the children passed him and the way was clear, but the distraction had been long enough that Spencer and the stranger had disappeared. Draco sped towards the gate, sending shards of ice spraying into the air as he skidded to a halt and stepped off the ice. He looked around frantically from side-to-side, but there was no sign of Spencer.

“Spencer! SPENCER!” Draco shouted, panic making his voice come out shrill. Draco collapsed back against the rink’s boundary, breaths sawing in and out of him, unsure what to do or where to start looking. He was just about to pull his wand out, Statute of Secrecy be damned, when his vision blurred and firm hands grabbed his shoulders.

“Malfoy? What’s going on?” Draco blinked rapidly, trying to process the words. Ron was watching him, brows drawn in concern and confusion. “Draco, I need you to calm down and tell me what’s happened,” Ron said, his voice measured.

_ I think that’s the first time he’s ever called me Draco _ . The stray thought helped to break the panic that had been overpowering him and he forced himself to get out the words. “The man. I saw him. He took Spencer.”

Ron nodded, a determined look settling over his face. He spoke with the level-headed calm that must come with years of Auror experience. “What does he look like?”

“I didn’t really see him. Tall, dressed in black—”

Ron cut him off with a shake of his head. “No, Spencer. What does Spencer look like?”

“Oh, um, about this tall,” Draco held his hand up just below his waist, “pale brown hair, bright orange beanie, and his jacket is red with a blue horizontal stripe around his chest and upper arms.”

“Good. You stay here and I’ll find him,” Ron barked out, his eyes already surveilling the surroundings as if assessing them by some criteria that Draco wasn’t privy to.

“No.” Draco shook his head. “He’s my responsibility. There’s no way I’m going to sit here and do nothing when he’s in danger.” Ron looked like he was about to object, but Draco saved him the effort. “No! If we split up, we can cover twice as much ground.”

Ron’s lips narrowed at Draco’s suggestion and he shook his head in rejection. “As far as we know, you’re the target of this guy. Maybe he just took the kid—”

“Spencer,” Draco interrupted. ‘The kid’ felt far too impersonal, too detached, and he felt compelled to remind Ron that this was a scared, flesh-and-blood child.

A weird look flitted across Ron’s face and then disappeared, replaced with his focussed Auror stare once more. “Maybe he took Spencer to lure you into some kind of a trap. We don’t want to give him what he wants.”

“Yes, we do,” Draco countered. Ron’s mouth opened, no doubt to tell him that he was being foolish and that he should leave it up to the professional, but Draco didn’t have the patience for that. Time was spooling away from them as they stood here and argued and did nothing to find Spencer. “If he’s after me, then let’s give him what he wants. If it will get Spencer back, then that’s all that matters!”

Folds appeared between Ron’s thick eyebrows as he furrowed his brow, giving Draco an inscrutable look. Finally, he sighed and seemed to give in. “Okay, fine. You can come with me. We’re not splitting up, though. And stay close. If you see the guy, don’t do anything stupid, alright?”

“That’s really more of a Gryffindor proclivity,” Draco muttered, pushing past Ron and searching the area for any sign of Spencer. If Ron heard him, he chose not to say anything, and they began flagging down random people they passed asking if they’d seen the boy, but no one had.

Draco was in the middle of asking an elderly gentleman who was taking his sweet time, his bony, brittle hand rubbing at his whiskered chin as he tried to remember if he’d seen someone matching Spencer’s description, when he heard Ron calling him. Draco spat out a quick ‘thanks’ to the old man, who sputtered after him, before running over to Ron, who was standing in front of the skate rental kiosk.

“This guy says that Spencer turned in his skates about five minutes ago and headed in that direction,” Ron related, pointing towards the carousel, which was alight with warm light but sitting motionless.

Draco didn’t spare a second glance at the rink workers shouts as he took off in the direction of the carousel, the sharp blades of the skates he was still wearing making harsh, grating sounds on the concrete now that he’d stepped off of the protective rubber flooring.

Ron caught up to him just as Draco reached the carousel, hands coming to rest on the metal of the gate that was encircling the entire structure. “Spencer!” Draco called, scanning each of the ornate animals in the menagerie of seats.

Ron eyed the gate, calculating, before backing up a few steps and taking a running start, using one hand on the top bar as support while he swung his legs out to the side and leapt over the fence. “I’ll check around the other side,” he said before taking off around the bend of the ride.

Draco held his breath as he waited for Ron to reappear. Spencer died a million deaths in the span of a few seconds, every possible, unbearable fate running through Draco’s mind, each one more tragic than the last. After an interminable length of time, Ron’s vibrant hair appeared as the barest sliver over one of the moulded plastic saddles before disappearing again only to reappear over the rear haunch of the pink elephant seat.

Draco felt as if he’d been hit with a Jelly-Legs Jinx as he saw that Ron’s long arms were wrapped around the small boy, whose head was buried in the base of Ron’s neck and his arm was wrapped around the other side.

“Found him. He’s perfectly safe,” Ron promised. A shared look of relief passed between the two men as Draco held out his arms and took Spencer from Ron, lifting him over the gate and setting him down.

Draco knelt down to the boy’s height as Ron hopped back over the barricade. “Spencer, you know you’re not supposed to leave the group like that!” Draco rushed out, a healthy dose of his fear seeping out with his words. When Spencer’s lip began to wobble, tears threatening to break free, Draco moderated his voice, “We were very worried about you. You know you’re not supposed to go off with strangers.”

“I didn’t!” the boy protested, stamping his foot and throwing his arm back as he thrust his torso forward, looking gravely offended that Draco would even suggest he’d done such a thing.

“Spencer, tell the truth,” Draco warned.

“I am!” he shouted, his thin body beginning to tremble with anger.

“I saw you walking away with that man, Spencer,” Draco chastened the boy. He understood that Spencer was probably feeling embarrassed and defensive, but Draco wanted to make it clear that Spencer had made a grave mistake. They were just fortunate that the man seemed to have reconsidered his plan and left Spencer unharmed. Spencer let out a growl of frustration and was about to argue, but Draco cut him off. “I know what I saw, Spencer. And I don’t want to hear any more lies. I’ll be telling your mum and dad about what happened today, but let’s just forget this happened for the rest of the party, okay?”

Draco clumsily pushed himself back up, wobbling slightly in the skates. “I need to go get everyone else out of their skates and we’ll head up to the café and open the presents, alright?”

Spencer’s mouth was contorted into such an extreme pout that an owl could probably land on his lower lip, but he reluctantly nodded, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Good.” Draco looked up to Ron and tentatively asked, “Do you mind staying with him for a bit?”

“Sure, that’s no problem,” Ron offered, patting Spencer’s shoulder a couple of times. “The skate guy seemed pretty narked that you were walking on the concrete with your skates still on. I think you may be purchasing those skates now. It might take you a bit to get that sorted out, so we’ll meet you up there, yeah?”

“Oh, yes. That would be...see you up there,” Draco stumbled over the words. He had only meant for Ron to keep his eye on Spencer for a few minutes, but it seemed as if Ron was planning to stay for the party. Draco found himself relieved rather than annoyed at the idea. It would give him a sense of relief having Ron there in case his stalker decided to return.

Draco hesitated for a few moments before turning around and hobbling off. The man in the rental kiosk was, indeed, glaring at him with a baleful look. Just before he passed out of earshot, he heard Spencer proclaim his innocence once more to Ron, “I didn’t go with a man. I just wanted to sit on the giraffe.”

Draco couldn’t make out what Weasley said in return.


	10. Ron

“I didn’t go with a man. I just wanted to sit on the giraffe.” Ron’s hand dropped into empty air as Spencer spun around to speak to him.

Squatting down to eye level with the boy, Ron gave the child a reassuring smile. “Mr Malfoy said he saw you walking away with a man dressed in black. Are you sure you’re not just afraid you’ll be in trouble? I promise that I’ll work it out with Mr Malfoy and make sure that you don’t get in any trouble from your parents.”

“I didn’t,” Spencer mumbled as he tucked his chin down next to his neck, pouting.

“Are you telling the truth right now, Spencer?” Ron asked gently. Spencer didn’t answer him, lifting his small hand up and brushing away a couple of stray tears as he stood resolute in his silence.

Ron studied the boy, doubt gnawing at him. He’d never actually  _ seen _ anyone else with the boy and only had Draco’s word that there had been someone trying to abscond with the child. However, he was very familiar with children’s propensity for fibbing when they thought they would be in trouble. To this day, Victoire still wouldn’t admit that she was the one who had woken up early before the rest of the family last Christmas and had opened everyone’s presents, not just her own. She swore up and down that she was innocent, even when they had pointed out that she still had powdered sugar from the shortbread cookies that Molly had made for Arthur, which were his favourite of her many holiday cookies, dusting her face.

Ron wouldn’t be at all surprised if Spencer was just digging in his heels now and sticking to his story because he knew that he had made a mistake and he didn’t want to get into trouble. Still, Ron couldn’t shake the persistent feeling of doubt that he was having, and he’d grown to respect his gut with things like this. Occasionally, Harry had joked that Ron may have some skills as a Seer because many of his off-handed comments had turned out to be strangely prophetic. Hermione had scoffed at the idea of course, more because even though the prophecy that Trelawney had made about Harry and Voldemort had ended up becoming true, she remained a staunch critic of Divination and its usefulness. Ron had agreed with her because oftentimes that was simply easier, but secretly he kind of liked the idea that perhaps he had some special innate skill. Being best friends with two exceptional people like Harry and Hermione, Ron had often felt like a third wheel, and this theory, as silly as it was, had reassured him a little that perhaps he was special as well.

Ron never told anyone about that, but he took it to heart and had learned to trust his instincts when it came to people. Something was not sitting right with him on this case. He and Harry had divided up the list of contacts and were about three-quarters of the way through them now and nobody could actually verify any of the claims that Malfoy had made so far. To his surprise, many of the people he had interviewed seemed apologetic about that and had been quick to assure him that though they hadn’t personally witnessed anything strange, they believed Draco was being truthful.

Many of the interviews he had conducted had stretched on, the people eager to tell him about how Malfoy was an upstanding person and that he was a pillar of the community. Both communities, really, because even the Muggles he had interviewed had good things to say about him. Some had conceded that Draco could be short-tempered sometimes and, if he wanted to, his words could cut like a knife, but they had emphatically stated that, on the whole, Draco was a good person.

Ron still couldn’t quite merge the two Dracos in his head: the selfish, entitled, hateful snob that he had known at Hogwarts, and this one, who seemed like a beloved, if sometimes cantankerous, man who dedicated his life to helping children. When he’d stubbornly accepted the case, he thought the hardest part would be putting aside his hatred of Malfoy, but he hadn’t expected that hatred to evolve and shift like it was. More and more, he was starting to wonder if perhaps his gut had been wrong about Draco all those years ago, and that was the hardest thing about this case. Ron didn’t know whether he could trust his instincts anymore.

The first Draco, the one that had occupied his head for so many years, he was still suspicious of. That Draco he could believe would be guilty of fabricating this whole thing. To what purpose, Ron didn’t know, but he still had that residual suspicion lingering from that first meeting weeks ago in the Ministry.

Increasingly though, the second Draco was earning his trust. Just because nobody else had been able to verify Draco’s claims so far did not mean that they were lies. It was entirely possible that Draco’s stalker was merely clever. That would be consistent with the Just Blood Army’s M.O. so far. Despite the Aurors having been investigating them for the better part of a year, they had only been able to identify a handful of low-level members. The whole thing reminded Ron of that awful Fifth year, where the Death Eaters had been able to move in relative secrecy while the rest of the wizarding world gleefully planted their heads in the sand and refused to admit that Voldemort had returned. Of course, back then the Daily Prophet had been quite happy to further perpetuate the Ministry’s stance, whereas now barely a day went by without the Alliance or the Army plastered across its pages.

They still hadn’t officially tied the Army to Draco’s case, but if the threats that Draco reported they’d uttered were true, then it seemed to fit with their beliefs. And besides, Ron had felt the burning heat of the alert bracelet; Draco had been experiencing genuine fear at that moment.

Ron pushed his thoughts aside and refocused on Spencer, who looked upset. “It’s okay, Spencer. I believe you.”

Spencer’s face puckered as he looked at Ron, who quickly arranged his features into what he hoped would portray support. Seeming relieved with what he read on Ron’s face, Spencer’s expression smoothed out and a small, tremulous smile pulled at his cheeks. “Really?”

Nodding, Ron said, “Really. Now, I don’t know about you, but after all that excitement I could use a nice hot chocolate.”

“With marshmallows?” Spencer asked hopefully. Already, the negative emotions were seeping away from the child and his mood was lifting.

“Of course! What’s hot chocolate without marshmallows?” Ron asked seriously. Placing his hands on his knees, he pushed himself up to standing and gave Spencer’s head a friendly rub. Ron could see a collection of bright orange hats that were a perfect match for the one on Spencer’s head making their way across the rink and off the ice, laughing and jostling as they removed their skates and turned them back in to the rental kiosk. Ron turned to see Draco’s white-blond hair about halfway down the rink. He seemed to be getting encircled by two laughing children in bright orange hats who kept swerving out of reach when Draco reached for them. Draco’s face looked brittle, as if he were marshalling all of his available self-control to not snap at the children. The man was obviously under a lot of stress, but he was trying not to show it.

“How about we help Mr Malfoy with getting everyone’s skates turned back in?” Ron suggested.

Spencer looked disappointed at the proposition of putting off his hot chocolate, but he reluctantly agreed. “Okay. Mummy says it’s nice to help others, so let’s do that.”

“Your mum is a very wise woman.”

The other counsellors, once they recognised Ron from the interviews he’d had with them, gave him a look of gratitude when he pitched in and helped unlace an endless stream of ice skates, Spencer chatting amiably to the other children all the while. When Draco finally managed to wrangle the final two stragglers off the ice—who, despite looking nothing alike, reminded Ron of Fred and George when they were young—all but a couple of the children had been taken care of and been ushered up to the café in bundles by the other counsellors. Spencer, despite Ron’s assurances that he could go on up and get some hot chocolate, had stayed and kept him company.

“You’re still here,” Draco said in a mixture of surprise and relief.

Pulling the now loosened skate from the little girl’s foot with a small grunt, he handed the matching pair over to her. “Take these over to that man over there,” Ron pointed, “and he’ll give you back your own shoes. Okay?”

“I’ll show you how,” Spencer valiantly offered before ushering the girl away.

Ron grinned at the little boy who he was growing rather fond of and then looked up at Draco. “Do you need help with those?” Ron pointed to Draco’s skates.

Draco looked down at his feet, surprised, and then let out a surprised bark of laughter. “I think I can handle them myself, thanks.”

Draco sat down on the bench to the side of where Ron was kneeling and bent over to begin unlacing them. Ron moved to take a seat beside Draco and leaned forward, hands clasped and elbows resting on his thighs.

“Spencer is adamant that he never went off with anyone, that there was no man.” Draco’s fingers paused at Ron’s words, delivered in a low voice so as not to be overheard. After a few seconds, he continued rhythmically loosening the laces.

“He’s probably just saying that because he thinks it will keep him out of trouble,” Draco said, not looking away from his deft hands. “Children are prone to do that.”

“Yeah, yeah that’s true,” Ron conceded. “But are you  _ sure _ you saw Spencer holding hands with a man.”

Draco abandoned his task and sat up abruptly, turning to level an angry glare at Ron. “I’m lying, is that it? You think I’ve made this whole thing up? Why would I do that? I’m so desperate for attention that I’m faking being stalked and attacked?” His voice rose steadily as he went on until they started garnering strange looks from people loitering nearby.

“Calm down,” Ron implored him, casting his eyes around the area and taking note of a number of people that looked a little too casual as they strained to eavesdrop on the growing dramatic scene.

Malfoy let out an annoyed growl and went back to removing his skates, his fingers looping into the laces and tugging angrily at them. “‘Calm down’, he says. He accuses me of making up a stalker and then tells me to calm down,” he grumbled, marking each word with a violent tug at the lace.

“I never said you made it up. It’s just… it’s a busy rink, there were people all around, it’s hard to keep your eyes on someone. I’m just wondering if it’s  _ possible _ that maybe there was just someone skating  _ beside _ Spencer, but not with him?”

Draco stuttered and Ron held his breath as they sat motionless, and then Draco let out a long breath and his body sagged. “It’s… possible,” he pushed out. Ron didn’t say anything as he got the sense that Draco had more to say. “Sometimes I feel like I’m going mad,” Draco whispered.

“You know what they say, only sane people question their sanity.”

There was a moment of silence and then Ron was surprised to hear a snort of laughter from beside him. “Weirdly, that sort of makes me feel better,” Draco said, laughing softly.

Just then, Spencer and the little girl came skipping up to them. “Can we go get hot chocolate now?” he asked.

Draco pulled off the skates and stood up. “Let me go pay for my ‘new’ skates and then we can head up.”

  
  


Ron spent the rest of the afternoon at the party. This was the first time he’d ever seen Draco at work and interacting with everyone and he couldn’t help but marvel at the sight of Draco utilising the skills that he more than likely honed from his privileged childhood. In the past, he probably would have thought that made him smarmy or conniving, greasing the wheels and working the room to manipulate people to get what he wanted. But he got to witness how that same skill set could be deployed in such a way that he made sure everyone felt welcome and special. He had a knack for sensing someone’s discomfort and finding a way to ease it. More than once, he would casually usher a child over from one area to another and it wasn’t long before they would be engaged in some game or activity and laughing joyfully. 

Though there was a number of counsellors and tutors pitching in to help, they were outnumbered and things would inevitably go wrong. Time and again, he watched as someone came running up to Draco with some looming crisis and Draco would calmly and resolutely deal with it. Ron had his suspicions that a great deal of Transfiguration was occurring whenever Draco slipped off to the supply closet claiming he had purchased extras of something, but none of the Muggles in attendance seemed to notice anything was amiss.

Ron had become distracted designing his own custom wand out of chopsticks, paint, and a great deal of glitter that he suspected he would be finding in the floor of his shower for weeks to come at one of the art stations that had been set up to keep the kids occupied, when a wave of gasps and excited chattering washed across the room. Carefully setting down his bright orange wand which had a spiral of hot glue covered in green glitter as a handle, Ron looked up and felt a broad grin blossom across his face.

A tall figure dressed in a deep red velvet Santa suit was making his way through a throng of children that had all circled around him and were vying for his attention. A quick flash of pale, grey eyes met his before the man looked away and let out a deep belly laugh and assured all the children that they would get to tell him what they wanted for Christmas.

Draco took a seat on an ornate wooden chair which had been set up beside the Christmas tree that was decorating one end of the café as several of the counsellors began ushering the children into a semblance of a line. Ron hadn’t noticed until then, but one of the counsellors, Elliott, had changed into an elf costume, complete with felted shoes with long curly toes.

Ron watched amused as each child took their turn sitting on Santa’s lap, telling him what they wanted for Christmas. Elliott the elf took diligent notes of each request at Santa’s direction and Ron wouldn’t be surprised if all of these parents were going to receive a helpful guide for their Christmas shopping as a result of this party. After each child had related their wish lists to Santa, Elliott would dig under the tree until he found the Christmas gift that Santa requested which would then be given to the child. A picture was taken and then it was onto the next one. The room’s volume grew steadily as more and more children finished their visit with Santa and hurried off to open their gift, packaging littering the floor as they ripped off the wrappers and began playing with their new toys.

After all of the children had their turn, Ron offered to take a picture of Draco and all the counsellors. Unfamiliar with the Muggle camera, the counsellor chuckled as she told him how to use the little screen to frame the shot and the button to push to capture the picture. After a few practice shots, she seemed satisfied that he would be fine and they all crowded around Draco shouting “Cheese!” Ron was just handing back the camera after taking a few shots, just to be sure, when the woman offered to take a picture of he and Draco. He exchanged an uncomfortable look with Draco before declining her offer, his ears heating for reasons he couldn’t put to words.

After a few hours, the party began to wind down as the parents showed up to reclaim their children. Ron’s suspicion was proven correct as Draco, who had now changed back to his regular clothes after Santa had taken his leave, claiming he had a lot of work to do at the North Pole with Christmas right around the corner, discreetly handed each parent a small square of paper, no doubt with the child’s wish list conveniently written out on it. Ron offered to stay and help clean up, but Draco had insisted they were fine and Ron had taken his leave after securing a promise from Draco that he would drop by the Ministry the next day so Ron could do a full report on the events today.

After he left the museum, Ron figured that since he didn’t have any hot plans for the night, he may as well pop into the office and get a start on the report. To his surprise, when he stepped into the bullpen, Harry was sat at his desk.

“Mate, weren’t you off an hour ago?” he asked as he flung his jacket over the back of the chair and settled down, shaking his over-long hair out of his face. It was probably time to get it cut, but he wasn’t keen to let his mum at him with scissors again as her haircuts looked a little too much like she’d just set a bowl over his head and cut along the edge. Plus, it felt weird getting a haircut from his mum as a grown man...it was weirdly intimate having someone stroking their hands through your hair like that.

Harry chuckled and looked up from the parchment he’d been writing on. “You’re one to talk. I’m just kicking around for a bit until Ginny finishes her meeting in the Department of Magical Games and Sports. What are you doing back here? I thought you had headed home ages ago.”

Ron spent the next few minutes recounting the events of his afternoon to Harry, who listened attentively, stopping him to ask a variety of questions when he got to the part about the search for Spencer. When he had finished the whole thing, he sank back in his chair and watched Harry expectantly.

“Hmmm, what does your gut say?” Harry asked. If there was one person besides himself that was likely to place Galleons on Ron’s gut being right, it was Harry.

“That’s just it: I really don’t know. If you had asked me a few weeks ago, I would have told you that D—Malfoy,” Ron quickly corrected himself, but to his relief, Harry didn’t seem to notice the slip, “was up to something.”

“And now?” Harry probed.

Ron didn’t answer right away, recalling Malfoy’s panic when he couldn’t find Spencer and thought he’d seen him go off with some stranger. His reaction seemed to be genuine. “I don’t know,” he hedged. “It seems like  _ something _ is going on. Malfoy was going mental looking for that kid. I don’t think he’s that good of an actor.”

“Is it possible that the assailant Obliviated the kid?” Harry suggested.

“I considered that,” Ron explained. “But since Spencer is a Muggle, I didn’t want to risk checking him for memory spell traces, and I’m pants at Legilimency.”

“Good call.” Harry, too, had never made any headway in the arts of Legilimency or Occlumency. Harry looked contemplative for a moment. “Well, Malfoy seems to have kept his nose clean since the War ended. I’ve never heard even a wisp of a rumour that he’s still into any Dark Arts. I see him from time to time at various benefits I get roped into by the Ministry,” Harry rolled his eyes—even all these years later, he still hadn’t become accustomed to all the attention he yielded as ‘The Boy Who Lived’ and couldn’t understand why people still fawned all over him, “but he usually keeps his distance. When we do interact, he’s always overly polite and excuses himself quickly.”

“Yeah,” Ron agreed. He also frequently received invitations to the same events as one-third of the ‘Golden Trio’—but unlike Harry, he kind of enjoyed being the centre of attention. Ron had managed to successfully avoid Malfoy at every function though. “Polite Malfoy is so  _ odd _ . And it’s downright bizarre seeing him interacting with Muggles as if he thinks of them as equals. You should have seen him all dressed up as Santa Claus.” Ron laughed at the memory of Draco’s surprised face when one of the children had become so excited at the prospect of sitting on his lap that he had taken a running leap and knocked the wind out of Draco for a moment.

“Are you okay, Ron?” Ron shook himself out of the memory to find Harry giving him an odd look.

“What? Yeah, I’m fine,” Ron said hastily. “Anyway, Malfoy just seems to have changed since school.”

Harry continued to give him a scrutinising look for a few moments before his face cleared and he shrugged. Harry cleared his throat and sat up straighter in his desk, hands suddenly busy with clearing up the scattered parchments and memos that littered the surface. “That programme of his sounds pretty decent,” Harry said in a tone of false casualness. “Ginny and I have been doing some reading up on it recently.”

Now it was Ron’s turn to give his best friend a scrutinising look. Harry seemed fidgety and nervous, and he didn’t seem able to meet Ron’s piercing gaze. “Oh, yeah?” Ron asked encouragingly, trying to sort out why Harry was acting so strange.

“Yeah…” Harry trailed off. “Umm...apparently they have once a week Mummy & Me classes…”

It took a few seconds for Harry’s words to sink in, but when they did, Ron shot to his feet and circled around to plant himself on the side of Harry’s desk. “Mate, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Harry looked up and his face lit up with the happiness that was painted across it. “If what you think is that Ginny and I are going to have a baby, then yes.”

“That’s brilliant!” Ron held out his hand for Harry, but when he took it, Ron pulled him up from his chair and threw his arms around him in a big bear hug. Harry, still not quite recovered from his injuries despite at least being ambulatory, was a little unsteady on his feet, but it didn’t matter as Ron held him up. “Congratulations! I’m so happy for you!”

“Thanks, Ron,” Harry said, sounding relieved. “I was a little nervous about telling you. You know...because of you and Hermione…”

Ron was glad he still had his arms wrapped around his best friend because it ensured that Harry didn’t see the fleeting pain that streaked across his face. He had been keen to start a family, but Hermione had wanted to hold off until she was more established in her career. At least, that was the reason at first, when things were still good between them. After a while, Ron’s desire for children had morphed into a desire to have something that would bring him and Hermione back together and she had seen through his threadbare reasoning. Ron still wanted children someday, but he now had to admit that would have been the wrong reason to jump into such a large commitment.

Their hug lasted a little longer than strictly necessary as Ron cleared his expression, but when he finally pulled back and helped Harry settle back into his chair, his countenance displayed nothing but the genuine happiness he had for his best friend and his sister.

“Are you crazy? I can’t wait to be cool uncle Ron. It’s a mantle that I was born to pick up!”

Harry laughed and pushed the metal frames of his glasses further up his nose. “I think you might have a little competition with George for the ‘cool uncle’ title. He does own a joke shop, after all.”

Ron waved away Harry’s words with one hand. “George has gags, but nothing’s cooler to kids than being an Auror,” Ron assured him.

“And Bill is basically the wizarding equivalent of Indiana Jones,” Harry continued. “And Charlie works with actual dragons. And Percy...well, you are definitely cooler than uncle Percy,” Harry allowed with a mischievous look.

“Gee, thanks,” Ron grumbled playfully, settling back down on the edge of Harry's desk with a humph and crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Harry reached up and clapped him on the shoulder. “But you’ll always be the coolest uncle in my book.”


	11. Draco

Draco was both relieved and disappointed when Ron left the party. His presence had been unsettling, stealing away Draco’s attention and making it hard for him to concentrate on the festivities. Whenever Draco’s attention wasn’t being called on to put out some minor fire or resolve an impending catastrophe, he had found his eyes wandering over to the red-haired man as if attracted by magnets.

Ron didn’t behave like some wallflower; instead, he played with the children and chatted amiably with all of the counsellors, who all seemed to remember him from his earlier interviews. Draco tried to hold onto his irritation at the man from earlier when Ron had basically accused him of being a liar, but the more he watched him, the harder he was finding it to stay angry.

Draco had almost backed out of his promise to dress up as Santa, not wanting to humiliate himself like that in front of his playground nemesis. It was only the fact that all of the children were so anxiously anticipating a visit from jolly Ol’ St Nick and would have been devastated if he didn’t make an appearance that got him into that suit and pointing his wand at his midsection until it protruded in a round belly. When he’d walked into the room, Draco had steadfastly avoided looking in the direction of the wand decorating station—the Statute of Secrecy may prevent them from telling the Muggle children about the wizarding world, but he always tried to find ways to infuse a little of the magical world into the activities to make the wizarding children feel comfortable and included as well. Sure, magic wands weren’t really a Christmassy craft, but they were always a big hit with the kids, both Muggle and wizarding, since many of them were still too young to be ready for their first real wand.

Once he’d finally decided to risk a glance in that direction, as opposed to the mocking sneer he’d been expecting to see, Ron’s face was alight with good-natured amusement, and Draco had felt his cheeks heat in response. Thankfully, rosy cheeks were a perfect addition to his costume and Elliott didn’t seem to notice when Draco had finally made his way through the throngs of eager children and taken his spot on the chair they’d set up.

To be honest, Draco found the endless stream of children with their countless requests for toys a bit dull, but he dutifully sat there and gave each child their turn in the spotlight, trying to mask his boredom. He did care very deeply about his programme, its goals and all the children who participated in it, but he would never be a Hufflepuff; he’d just gotten much better at keeping those selfish thoughts to himself. And other people’s children could be annoying.

When it was Spencer’s turn to come up, he moved slowly, shooting Draco timid looks as he crawled up into his lap. Judging by the way he studied Draco’s beard, Draco surmised that Spencer knew it was really him under the costume—though he was glad that Spencer didn’t attempt to prove that theory by tugging on the beard, because Draco had used a Sticking Charm to keep it on that would have hurt a fright if yanked on.

Draco had almost managed to forget the earlier events, but he felt the memories settle like a rock in his stomach when Spencer whispered, “I want Mr Malfoy to not be angry at me.”

Draco’s smile was a rictus mimicry of joy as he forced himself to keep his cool. The fear and panic that had gripped him earlier came flooding back, but Spencer just seemed so sad, and Draco wanted to wipe away that sadness and replace it with the happy, laughing face that he was so used to seeing on the small boy.

“Well,” Draco began, stroking his beard as if in contemplation, “if you’re a very good boy and keep your nose clean and stay on my ‘nice’ list, I’m sure that he couldn’t possibly stay angry with you.” Draco leaned down, gently pushing Spencer’s chin up so that their eyes were locked. “Are you going to do that?”

There was a slight pressure against his finger as Spencer’s chin pushed down in a small nod. Draco studied the boy and then pushed aside all those negative feelings and gave him a genuine look of fondness. “That’s good. And I’m sure that in addition to that, Santa will probably be bringing you some new toys to play with. What toy do you really, really, really want?”

Spencer’s timidness dissolved and a glint of excitement sparkled in his eyes. “I really want a Fly Wheels XPV,” he said breathlessly. “It’s a remote-controlled car that goes really really fast, so fast that it can even fly!”

“I see,” Draco exchanged a look with Elliott. “Well, Santa may just have something here you’ll like then. Jingles, that one with the blue wrapping paper with snowmen on it, please.” Elliott shifted a few of the other gifts in the area that Draco was pointing before emerging, triumphant, with the present that Draco had told him. It was fortunate that he’d done a little research into what all the season’s hottest toys were and made sure he had transfigured one or two of each for handing out to the kids.

Elliott pretended to trip, stumbling for a step and sending the present soaring in the air before catching it again, then handed Draco the present with an elaborate bow. “Here you go Santa,” he said in his high-pitched elf-like voice and Spencer giggled.

“It’s so hard to find good help these days,” Draco commiserated with Spencer, before handing him the present. Spencer took it eagerly and then his face took on a grave expression.

“Do I have to wait until Christmas to open it?”

“Hmmm, normally that is the rule…” Draco trailed off, drawing out the suspense until Spencer fidgeted on his lap, “but I suppose I can make an exception, just this once.”

“Thank you!” Spencer cast a look at the lineup of children that were still waiting to sit on Santa’s lap, then lowered his voice, “I know it’s really you, Mr Malfoy.”

Draco wasn’t quite sure what to say, but Spencer continued, making him glad that he hadn’t said anything too revealing. “Santa’s too busy making toys in the North Pole right now, so he asks adults to pretend to be him to visit with little kids,” Spencer explained confidently. “My mum told me so.”

Draco was grateful for the thick white beard at that moment because it hid his desperate attempts to stifle a laugh. Not trusting himself to speak right then, Draco just lifted his black leather gloved hand up and held one finger against his lips in a shushing gesture.

Spencer giggled again, obviously quite pleased with himself that he was in on this adults’ ruse, and then hopped off his lap and ran over to his two friends, who were still waiting in the line. Draco watched as Spencer tore the wrapping paper off and beamed at the remote-controlled toy inside.

After that, Draco found his spirits buoyed and a newfound patience that saw him through the rest of the line. After all the kids had been seen and pictures were taken, Santa Claus excused himself from the party, claiming he had much work to do in the North Pole. As Draco shrunk his stomach back to its normal size and squeezed out of the costume in the cramped supply closet, he laughed to himself as he went over the awkward moment when one of his counsellors had offered to take a picture of Ron sitting on Santa’s lap. Draco had been none too pleased with his counsellor Helen’s suggestion, especially when it was clear as day by the look of feigned innocence on her face that she knew she was stirring the pot, but at least his flush could be attributed to the rosy complexion of Santa.

After a few hours, the party began to wind down and he fielded questions and comments from a medley of parents as they began to show up and collect their offspring. Spencer approached him nervously, body turned in towards his mother’s leg, her arm wrapped around him and hand resting on his shoulder.

Draco contemplated asking to speak to her privately for a few moments, but he saw the nervous, darting looks that Spencer was shooting him and remembered his tremulous wish when he was sat on Santa’s lap earlier, and Draco found he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Besides, he reasoned, nobody else seemed to have witnessed the incident, so it was down to a case of conflicting accounts. Already, Draco had begun to wonder if, perhaps, he had let the events of the past few weeks affect his judgment and whether he was becoming overly paranoid.

Without thinking, his eyes wandered over to Weasley, who was stood by the espresso bar talking with some of the counsellors. As Draco watched, Weasley’s face turned towards him, as if he could sense Draco’s eyes on him, and the man’s brows drew together when he noticed who Draco was talking to.

Draco yanked himself back to the current conversation to find Spencer’s mum, Carol, watching him expectantly. “I’m sorry, I missed what you said,” Draco apologised.

Carol chuckled. “I don’t blame you. I think I’d go barmy if I had to spend the whole day caring for other people’s bairns. Spencer here is a good lad, all things considered, and I still feel like I’m losing my mind sometimes.”

“Mummmm,” Spencer whinged, but his mother seemed nonplussed, ruffling his hair fondly.

Draco looked down at the boy before replying, directing his reassurance just as much to Spencer as to his mother. “Spencer is a delightful child and I’m pleased to have him in our programme.” At his words, Spencer smiled shyly up at Draco and he uncurled a bit from the protective embrace of his mum.

“Well, that’s reassuring to hear. He must save his most devilish moments for me,” she joked. “As I was saying before I lost you to mental meanderings, I was just wondering when the next session will be starting?”

“Oh!” Draco exclaimed before reaching over to the nearby table where they had left a stack of pamphlets for the upcoming sessions. He handed the folded paper over to Carol. “This has all the programmes we’ll be running in the new year. Most start in January, but we also have a couple that won’t be starting until February.”

Carol unfolded the pamphlet and began scanning through the catalogue as Draco continued, “Most of the same programmes will be running again, but we will also begin offering a new music programme next year that I have been working on putting together.”

“Music?” Carol asked, looking a bit uncertain. Leaning forward, in a voice pitched low so Spencer couldn’t hear, she whispered, “We don’t really have the money available for that right now.” She nibbled on one side of her lower lip nervously, looking guilty, as if she was somehow failing her son because she couldn’t afford that kind of expense.

“You don’t have to worry about that. I’ve worked out a deal with a local music shop and they’ve agreed to give us a discount on all of the instruments, and we’ve also received a very generous donation from a private donor for the programme. The music programme will be open to any student that wants to participate, regardless of their...circumstances.”

“Really?” She looked relieved when Draco nodded.

The child he had been fifteen years ago would have not cared a fleck if one of his classmates had to miss out on something because they couldn’t afford it. Indeed, he probably would have taken a sick glee in it, tittering to the rest of his privileged social set about how he’d rather  _ die _ than be  _ poor _ . Draco felt sick, even now, at how he’d behaved back then; how he’d been so willingly ignorant of his own privileges. Privileges which he’d merely inherited, never worked for. How he’d behaved as if he  _ deserved _ everything he had been given and it wasn’t just some lucky draw of the genetic lottery.

Once again, he found his mind wandering over to Ronald Weasley, his eyes not far behind. So often, Ron had been the target that Draco’s insults had been aimed at. Draco felt the shame that had lived inside of him for the past six years sit up and look around, called up by his recollection of his past behaviour. Draco wasn’t sure what expression his features were arranged in, but judging by the way Ron seemed to be politely excusing himself from his conversation and was making his way across the room to Draco, he imagined they must be alarming.

Draco schooled his features and turned his attention back to Carol. “If Spencer has an interest in music, we’ll make sure he can explore it.”

“Can I play the drums?” he asked excitedly, and Draco stifled a chuckle at the look of despair that bloomed on Carol’s face.

“There might be quite a lot of competition for the drums, so we might have to share those, but what do you say to something like the violin?” Draco suggested, smiling when Carol silently mouthed a ‘thank you’ at him. He couldn’t blame her; he wouldn’t be keen to have someone smashing away at the drums in his tiny flat.

“I guess…” Spencer trailed off, looking disappointed at the prospect.

Draco knew just what to say to get Spencer on board with the idea. Leaning down, he eyed the boy critically and rubbed his chin, his thumb and index finger spread out across either jaw. “Hmmm, perhaps not. I think the violin would be much too advanced for someone your age.”

“I can do it!” Spencer protested, immediately forgetting his reluctance of only a few moments ago.

“No, no, I don’t think so. I think it would be far too difficult for you. Perhaps one of the older children should learn the violin. What do you say to the triangle instead?” Draco proposed, baiting the child even further.

“I don’t want the dumb triangle! I want the violin!” Spencer shouted, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet in his excitement.

“Hmmm...I suppose we could  _ try _ it,” Draco hedged. “But you’re going to have to work very hard at it. No skiving off your practices. Do you think you could do that?” Draco asked.

“I’ll practice all the time!” he promised, nodding his head so vehemently that he looked like one of those bobble-heads that someone had just flicked with a finger.

“Well…okay, as long as you practise very hard.” Draco stood up again and winked at Carol just as Weasley came up to the small group.

“Everything okay?” he asked, his eyes scanning over Draco and his expression softening at the fact that whatever he’d seen a few moments ago on Draco’s face seemed to have faded.

“I’m going to play the violin next year!” Spencer announced proudly to Ron.

“That’s brilliant! I love the violin. Maybe you’ll grow up and become a famous musician someday and I can come see you play for the orchestra or something.” Draco almost scoffed at Ron’s suggestion—the boy hadn’t even laid hands on a violin yet and already Ron had him world-famous and playing for the orchestra—but he quashed the impulse when he saw the excitement on Spencer’s face.

“Hi, I’m Carol.” She held her hand out to Ron, who shook it and introduced himself in return. “Are you one of the counsellors here? I don’t think we’ve met yet.”

“Me? No, not a counsellor. I’m just a friend of Draco’s.” Ron gestured his thumb in Draco’s direction and Draco didn’t stop to examine why he felt a little flip of his stomach at Ron’s casual description of them as friends.

“Mr Weasley found me when I got lost earlier,” Spencer explained, before realising that he’d outed his secret to his mother. He slapped both hands over his mouth and shot a distressed look over at Draco.

“What’s this about being lost?” The relaxed friendliness on Carol’s face had been replaced with a growing concern, and Draco hastened to ease the situation.

“We just had a little incident this afternoon. Spencer here got tired of skating and wandered off to sit on the carousel,” Draco explained. If there was a time to tell Carol about what he had seen earlier, this was it, but he found himself leaving the mysterious stranger he had seen talking to Spencer out of it. “We found him a few minutes later. Safe and sound and no harm done.”

Carol let out a long breath that she must have been holding in relief, before turning to look down at her son. “How many times do I have to tell you not to wander off like that?”

Draco wondered if perhaps he should have told her the whole story, but he figured that at least she would still be giving Spencer a refresher on staying close at hand, and really, that was the most important thing.

“I’m sorry about that,” she apologised, pulling her child back in against her, just like they had been arranged when they’d first approached Draco; then it had been Spencer seeking comfort, and now it was her turn. “He’s done that to me in the past too. Scares the dickens out of me.”

“Yes, it was quite panic-inducing,” Draco agreed. “But I think he’s learned his lesson now, haven’t you, Spencer?”

The boy didn’t say anything at first, earning a prompting from his mum, “Spencer, don’t you have something to say?”

Spencer nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry I wandered off.”

“You’re forgiven,” Draco said.

“We really should be going. I have to stop by the grocer’s before they close,” Carol said, looking down at the simple watch around her wrist. “Happy holidays!”

“Happy holidays. See you next year,” Draco called after them as they turned to go, his mother relegated to holding the remote-controlled vehicle while he pulled on his thick winter coat.

“Don’t forget to come watch me play my violin!” Spencer called back over his shoulder to Ron, who waved at the boy as he nodded.

When they disappeared through the door, Draco turned to Ron. “I imagine you’ll be ready to leave too?” he asked.

Ron’s mouth, which had dropped open to say something, closed again as he was seemingly taken off guard by Draco’s clipped question. “Oh… ummm… yeah, I suppose. Unless… you need help cleaning up?”

Weirdly, Draco found himself wanting to accept Weasley’s offer, so he turned his back on the man and busied himself with tidying up one of the art stations, scraping his hand across the table and assembling the scattered rainbow assortment of pompoms into a heaping pile in the middle of the table.

“We’ll be fine. Thank you for your help today,” Draco said brusquely, not looking up from his task. Out of the corner of his vision, he could see the other man bury his hands in the front pockets of his dark grey jeans, which were faded to a much lighter grey at the knees.

“Yeah, sure. No problem.” The uncertainty in Ron’s voice was gone and his tone was clipped and professional as he instructed, “To be safe, don’t walk anywhere alone, just in case that guy is still watching you.” Draco bristled at the instruction, resentful of Ron’s insinuation that Draco was a helpless whelp who couldn’t protect himself. Gritting his teeth, Draco nodded as if he was barely listening to Ron’s imploration and waved his hand dismissively in the other man’s direction. “Fine. Later, Malfoy.”

Draco watched as Ron strode away, waving a quick goodbye to Elliott and the other counsellors that he’d been socialising with by the bar but not stopping to say goodbye. Draco breathed a sigh of relief when his broad back disappeared through the door.

Two hours later, all the children had been collected and they had the café cleaned up, a few covertly cast  _ Scourgify _ s helping with the worst of the paint stains. He and the counsellors walked together towards the nearest Underground station, where they parted ways, Draco doling out the holly-adorned envelopes with each of their Christmas bonuses. He awkwardly returned their hugs and cheek-kisses as each of the counsellors personally wished him a merry Christmas and thanked him for their bonus.

He and Elliott happened to be heading in the same direction, and Draco wondered if Ron had perhaps asked Elliott to ensure he got home safely, but he reluctantly accepted Elliott’s explanation that he was heading out to his girlfriend’s work party. They talked casually about random topics as the train raced beneath the city’s streets, and before he knew it, they were pulling into Draco’s station. He half-expected Elliott to make some pathetic excuse to walk him to the door of his building, but he realised he was being paranoid when Elliott just waved him off and wished him a happy holiday.

Draco exited the Underground station and looked around; the sun had just set and twilight was bleeding into dusk, long shadows stretching across the concrete from the poles and buildings. Flipping his collar up to repel the cool wind that was being funnelled through the street, Draco turned and began making his way down the three blocks to his building. He wrestled between the competing desires to stroll leisurely and thumb his nose at Ron Weasley and to hustle home and lock his door behind him. As much as he resented Ron’s insulting instructions and seeming belief that Draco had the intelligence of a mountain troll, he couldn’t shake the itching sensation that menacing gazes were slithering over him from every darkened doorstep and pitch-black alley.

Draco compromised by walking steadily and with purpose, and a few minutes later he was at the door of his building and fumbling to get the key into the lock. He breathed a sigh of relief as he closed the door behind him and heard the click of the lock engage, feeling silly that he’d managed to work himself into such a tizzy in such a short time.

Laughing at himself, he made his way up the five flights of stairs to his flat and let himself in, a feeling of security and comfort immediately washing over him as he kicked off his shoes and hung his coat up on the hook by the door. He dropped his head to one side before rolling it forward slowly until it was resting against the opposite shoulder, trying to work out the kinks in his neck. The afternoon had gone off, with that one sizable exception, without a hitch, but all the stress of the planning and organization, not to mention the fact that shepherding that many children was a bit like trying to wrangle kneazles, had all cumulated in an enormous knot of tension in his neck and shoulders.

Knowing just what would help with that, Draco changed into a pair of form-fitting leggings and spent the next hour or so doing an advanced yoga routine, letting the activity expand and envelope his focus and clear his mind. By the end of the routine, topped off with a short meditation session, both his mind and his body felt refreshed.

Draco rolled over and pushed himself into a kneeling position so that he could roll up his yoga mat and then tucked it away in the container under his bed. He padded barefoot into his kitchen and pulled the leftover curry takeaway from last night out of the fridge, spooning it out onto a plate and heating it with a point of his wand. Carrying the plate of piping hot, fragrant leftovers over to the small desk tucked into one corner of the studio flat, Draco periodically took a break from the budget documents he was working on to take a mouthful of his dinner.

Once his plate was clear, he took that as his cue to put aside his work for the evening. He washed the plate and fork and set them in the dish rack to dry before padding into the bathroom, stripping off the tight exercise wear and his pants in one motion.

Turning the taps, Draco pointed his wand at the metal pipe that projected out of the wall and held up the showerhead, casting a Warming spell at the metal to help speed up the heating of the water. His building was quite old and the miserly landlord refused to upgrade the water heater, so the best you could hope for was about five minutes of hot water before you would be blasted with water so cold that it could cause your testicles to retract back into your body. Draco felt no compunction about using his magic to avoid that particular fate.

Satisfied with the temperature of the water, Draco slipped his wand into the makeshift holster he’d made for it on the wall of the tiny cubicle and stepped inside, sliding the glass door shut behind him. Draco took his time, periodically refreshing the charm on the pipes when the temperature dipped to threatening levels.

Tipping his head back and letting the water wash over his face, sweeping clear the suds from his hair, Draco found his mind replaying the events of the day and the tension began to coalesce in his shoulders again.

_ There’s more than one way to skin a kneazle _ , he thought. Giving the pipes another renewed burst of magic, prolonging it for as long as he dared, until steam was rising up and fogging the tempered glass of the cubicle, Draco replaced his wand and leaned his forehead against his left forearm on the smooth tile of the shower wall, Dark Mark hidden from sight against the slick tiles.

Taking himself in hand, Draco stroked himself to fullness, playing back all of his best erotic moments on a ‘Best Of’ reel in his mind. Draco may not have had any interest in involving any fantasies of being Lord Voldemort’s plaything in the bedroom, but it was moments like this when he missed the way that Hufflepuff’s tongue would tease his arse. Draco let all the sexiest memories he possessed bubble to the surface, no particular order to them, as he worked himself closer to his release.

Already, the stress-fuelled tension that he had felt creeping back into him was being replaced by another form of tension. Draco’s hand sped up, the movements eased by the streams of bubbles sluicing down his body. He could feel the pressure mounting as he took shallow, panting breaths, tingling at the base of his spine, his fingers and toes feeling warm from inside, beyond the shower’s reach.

Twisting his hand a quarter-turn on every stroke, giving the sensitive head of his cock that little extra sensation, Draco could feel the first trickles of his orgasm begin to creep through him. Just then, a memory of Weasley’s face from this afternoon—a wide, happy smile lighting it up as he laughed at some joke or comment that one of the children had just made—and Draco felt the storm of his orgasm break over him, his abdominals and arse muscles clenching fiercely as his ejaculate painted the wet tiles in streaks.

Tiny tremors were still igniting inside him as he pushed himself off the wall and stood once more and began rinsing himself off. He tried not to examine what had just happened too closely as he finished rinsing himself off, his timing perfect as the heat began to fade, to be replaced with a biting cold rinse which would close his pores. Turning off the water, Draco cast a  _ Scourgify _ at the shower wall, just in case, and stepped out of the shower, wrapping a fluffy, grey towel around his waist before bending over and using a second towel to dry his hair.

_ It was just the bracelet _ , he tried to assure himself. The dull thuds of the metal around his wrist as his arm had jerked back and forth had just put him in mind of Weasley, he reasoned. That was the only explanation for that… lapse back there. There was no way that that was going to become a  _ thing _ with him, Draco vowed. Sure, Ron may be objectively fit, but Draco had no plan on depositing the man in his wank bank.

Slipping the bracelet off his wrist, he tossed it onto his bedside table and dipped into the kitchen. Filling the kettle with water, he set it on the hob and turned it on, the banked flame bursting to life underneath it as he opened the nozzle on the gas. Many wizarding people just used heating charms for their cuppa, but magically heated water always had a weird taste to Draco, and he preferred the Muggle way.

Once the kettle was whistling, he filled his favourite mug—mint green with a powder blue spiral circling up and around it several times. Bobbing the tea bag for exactly four minutes—the perfect length of time for superbly brewed tea—he tossed the tea bag away and made his way back into the main room.

He stopped abruptly when he registered the fact that he wasn’t alone. Unbidden, his eyes darted over to the front door, which was still securely locked and fastened, and then back to the lumbering figure that was standing on the far side of his bed, next to the window. The man’s eyes were dark, oozing menace as he sneered at Draco.

Dropping the mug, Draco barely registered the licking burns as the boiling hot water splashed onto his feet and calf when the mug hit the laminate, a cheap replica that was supposed to look like wood but failed miserably in that attempt. Draco cursed his foolishness for leaving his wand on the bathroom counter, out of reach, as he darted to the door and started fiddling with the triplicate locks, his hands shaking with the sudden spike of adrenaline that was coursing through his veins.

His face slammed into the wood of the door and he felt blood burst forth from his nose as the man yanked his head back, cruel fingers tugging on Draco’s hair and bringing tears to his eyes at the sharp sensation. Just as Draco was about to scream for help, a hand clamped around his throat, cutting off his breath and crushing his Adam’s apple.

Draco’s eyes darted around the room in horror as he was hauled back against the huge body behind him. Draco kicked back, trying to land a solid blow to his attacker and free himself, but every time his foot met with nothing but air as he missed his mark. He scrabbled at the hand that was cutting off his air supply, scratching at it with his short, trimmed nails, but his attacker seemed to take no notice.

After what felt like hours, his attacker wrestled him onto the bed, his grip on Draco’s throat loosening enough to allow Draco to take a deep breath, chasing away the fuzzy blackness that had begun to seep into his vision. Scrabbling back, Draco looked around, searching for anything he could use as a weapon, but there was nothing. But then he saw the silver metal bracelet on his table.

Before he could make a dive for it, the wind was knocked out of him as the attacker’s great weight landed on him. They struggled, but Draco was unable to stop him from sealing his vice-like grip over his throat once more. Reaching out, Draco struggled to reach the circle of metal, his fingertips grazing over it, just out of reach.

Pushing his torso up, sacrificing what little leeway his airway had in a gamble on which his life was balanced, Draco managed to hook his fingers over the cool metal just as his vision faded to black.


	12. Ron

The locking mechanism of the phone booth that acted as the visitor’s entrance of the Ministry of Magic was stuck and Ron had to jam his shoulder into the door until it finally gave way, a long string of pink bubble gum stretching out and wrapping across his waist before he noticed it.

“Gah!” Ron shouted, picking at the sticky mass and trying to tease it free from the fibres of his wool coat before it was beyond hope. Not even bothering to look around to verify that the coast was clear, Ron pulled out his wand and cast a Freezing charm at the confection and then flecked the hardened bits, sending shards of the once-sticky treat flying down onto the sidewalk. If he weren’t in such a foul mood, he probably would have stopped to clean the obnoxious adhesive off the door as well. Instead, he stormed off, mentally declaring it someone else’s problem.

Ron shoved his hands into the square front pockets of his coat and ducked his head down, the wind biting enough that even after only a few minutes, his skin already felt raw. It really wasn’t the weather for storming off in a strop, but Ron couldn’t help it, anger itching under his skin and propelling his feet onwards.

“Bloody Prophet muppets,” Ron grumbled miserably.

Ron had been sitting alone at his desk, Ginny having come to reclaim her husband about twenty minutes after Ron had gone back to the department, when Robards’s door had swung open and he’d stuck his head out. It had given Ron a fright as he hadn’t realised that anyone else was there.

“Weasley, you’d better come in here,” Robards said. Ron wasn’t sure why, but he felt like his stomach tried to leap up into his torso and make a bid for freedom through his mouth.

“Everything okay, boss?” he asked nervously, pushing himself up from his chair and hesitantly walking over to the office.

Robards sighed before looking behind him, saying a few words, and then stepping out of his office. He pulled the door shut carefully behind him and turned to give Ron a sympathetic look. “Weasley, I have The Mosquito in my office and she is looking for a quote for tomorrow’s front page.”

Ron bristled at the mention of Rita Skeeter. That woman was just as vile as always, only now her stinger was just as likely to suck his blood as it had been Harry’s all those years ago. A tiny part of him wished Hermione had squashed her like the pest she is rather than imprisoning her in that jar for a few days.

“What does that bloodsucker want now?” Ron spat.

“If you go in there and lose your head, you’re just giving her exactly what she wants.” Robards’s caution was not really necessary as Ron already knew that Skeeter was like a pig in shit when she managed to get a reaction out of someone. But knowing that and being able to remember it when faced with the obnoxious woman were two different matters.

“I bloo—” At Robards’ stern look, Ron muzzled himself. Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself before trying again, “I know that, sir. She just… she always seems to know how to push my buttons. What story is she working on now?”

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. Probably wants to make sure she gets the most extreme reaction out of you that she can.” Robards eyed him critically for a few moments before continuing, “Do you think you can handle this? I know you’ve had a lot going on lately.”

Ron took a few deep, steadying breaths, his nostrils flaring so wide that he probably looked like a cartoon version of a bull. Lips clamped together, he nodded. Robards looked sceptical, but he pushed open the door and ushered Ron inside.

Skeeter was wearing a neon purple suit, the jacket collar trimmed with a black fur stole of some unidentifiable animal that draped over her shoulders and matched her mile-high heels. When Ron entered, she made no move to get up, merely swung her crossed leg back and forth and shot him a simpering look.

“Ronald Weasley! It’s such a treat to see you again!”

Ron didn’t bother to pretend it was anything other than complete torture to be in her presence. “What do you want, Skeeter?”

Her mouth moved into a moue of disappointment, but Ron could read perfectly the gleeful schadenfreude that lay beneath. “Now now, Mr Weasley—”

“Auror Weasley,” he corrected. She grinned coquettishly at him.

“Of course, Auror Weasley. That’s no way to greet an old friend, is it?”

Ron snorted. “Lady, with friends like you, who needs enemies?”

Gawain cleared his throat, obviously thinking that Ron’s self-control was depleting rapidly. “Why don’t you just get to the point, Rita?”

Rita turned her wily gaze on Robards. “Of course, Gawain. My apologies. I’m sure you are anxious to get home to your family.” She turned to Ron. “And you… well, perhaps you have a crup to get home to?”

Ron had always been raised to believe that you never hit a woman, but he sorely wanted to make an exception for this particular woman. He wanted to wipe that smug look right off her face. Needing a distraction, Ron arranged his arms behind his back, holding one wrist and clenching the other hand into a fist. Fortunately, his fingernails were just long enough that they dug into the flesh of his palm, the sharp jab of pain giving him something else to focus on.

“You wanted a statement?” he asked, working hard to make sure his face and tone were as neutral as possible. Her lips pinched together in disappointment, the expression fleeting and replaced with an artificially friendly smile.

“Yes, we were just wondering whether you wanted to make a statement about a little story we’re working on right now.” Skeeter drew out the moment, taking her time to open the clasp on the black leather clutch that she had resting between her hip and the chair’s armrest. Pulling out a notebook and one of her infamous Quick-Quotes Quills, she tapped the ornate peacock feather with her wand and it sprang to life, hovering over the waiting page of the notebook.

Ron held his breath, trying to brace himself for what he was sure was going to be the equivalent of a hippogriff’s kick to the nether regions. But nothing could have prepared him for this.

“I’m sure you’ve heard the happy news already.” When Ron didn’t say anything, Skeeter went on, “That your ex-wife has found love once more?”

“What?” Ron couldn’t help the shout of surprise that came out of him and Skeeter’s look of smug satisfaction that she was obviously the one to break this particular piece of gossip to Ron lit up her face.

Ron struggled not to react to Skeeter’s bait, but like a shark scenting a drop of blood in the ocean, she attacked.

“Oh… had you not heard yet? My apologies. I assumed this would have been yesterday’s news to you. Yes, it seems the former Mrs Weasley—but oh! I suppose she never took your name, did she?” Ron ground his teeth at her obvious attempt to get under his skin. Witches and wizards of a certain generation always seemed to find it odd that Hermione had wanted to keep her name when they’d married, though it had never really bothered him. It was just annoying always having to  _ explain _ it to people.

“Well, renewed love would be more apt, I suppose. She and Viktor Krum were something of an item back when you lot were in school, were they not?” she asked innocently.

Ron’s eyes shot open at Skeeter’s revelation. Hermione and Krum were together?! Ron couldn’t put a name to the cacophony of emotions that swirled through him in that moment. Ron knew that the day would come when Hermione would start dating again—she was too much of a catch to stay on the market for long—but he never would have guessed that it would be with Krum. Hermione had been furious with both of them when she’d found out what had happened that one night that she had to work late. It seemed impossible that they could be together now.

That’s when the realisation hit Ron: Skeeter was making this up! She had to be! There was no way that Hermione and Krum could be a couple now. “That’s bollocks, that is. Don’t you have anything better to do than cook up these tall tales, Rita? Isn’t there any  _ real _ news that you could be reporting on?”

“I assure you, I have it from a very reliable source that Ms Granger and Mr Krum have been seen dining together at a very romantic Muggle establishment. But since you mentioned it, we are also working on a new story about the Just Blood Army and the DMLE’s seeming incapability in tracking them down. Tell me, Auror Weasley, have you allowed any  _ more _ witnesses to be blown up recently? I’d love an exclusive,” she simpered at him and Ron took a step toward her, only to be stopped by Gawain’s hand on his chest.

“I think we’re done here, Ms Skeeter,” his boss hissed out before giving Ron a reprimanding look.

“No comment, then?” she asked, her quill beginning to scrawl frantically, a surefire sign that she was going to use the space that his silence provided to fill the story with as much salacious conjecture as she could come up with.

Ron forced his mouth into a rictus of barely concealed hatred. “I’m very happy for my ex-wife and I wish her nothing but the best,” he managed to bite out. The words weren’t entirely a lie, but they did nothing to describe the complicated feelings that he hadn’t even begun to explore.

Skeeter smirked at him as her quill finished up its writing and drifted over to settle alongside the notebook inside her clutch, which she held open and aloft. Closing it with a sharp click of the locking mechanism, she tucked it under her arm as she silkily uncrossed her legs and stood up. With her other arm, she patted delicately at her coif, which was held up with so much hairspray that Ron swore he could hear a soft crunching sound every time her hand made contact.

“It’s so fortunate for Ms Granger that Krum seems blind to the fact that she’s Muggle-born,” she simpered. “Unlike some people.”

This time, Robards bodily stepped in front of Ron and prevented him from charging at the hateful witch. “Good evening, Ms Skeeter.” Robards left little doubt that his words were an order for her to leave and not a salutation.

“A pleasure as always, Gawain”—Rita looked over Robards’s shoulder, “Auror Weasley.” There was only a handful of steps between her chair and the fireplace in Gawain’s office, but she used them to maximum effect, swivelling her hips in what Ron was sure she thought was a seductive manner. Putting aside his recent confusion surrounding his own sexuality, he’d have rather cut his cock off than even contemplate putting it inside that woman.

Taking a handful of Floo powder from the mug on Gawain’s mantle, she disappeared with a crisp call of, “Daily Prophet Offices”.

She was barely out of sight when Ron let out a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a scream. Pushing his way around Robards, he stalked over to the chair that Skeeter had vacated and picked it up, slamming it back down with no small amount of force. It felt so good that he did it again. And again. When he’d finally managed to dispel some of the rage that was lighting up his veins, the chair looked a little worse for wear, wobbling thanks to the fact that several of the legs were now curved outwards. Gawain didn’t say anything, merely taking his wand out and pointing an efficient  _ Reparo _ at the battered chair and walking around to his own chair.

Gawain took a seat before bending down and sliding open one of the bottom drawers of his desk, emerging with a large bottle of Firewhisky and two glasses. They didn’t speak as Ron relinquished his grip on the poor chair and sat down—in the other one. Robards dropped two marbled-grey stones into the glasses and cast a freezing charm on them before pouring a healthy dose of the whisky into each tumbler.

“I didn’t know we were allowed to drink in the office,” Ron joked lamely, his heart not in it.

“That woman is enough to send a teetotaller scrambling for the bottle.”

Ron snorted. “Tell me about it.” Ron didn’t bother with small sips and threw back the entire drink in one gulp, wincing slightly as the whisky burned down his throat. Robards didn’t say anything, merely perked his eyebrow up in question when Ron held his glass out for a second serving, but he relented and poured another few fingers.

Ron stopped and looked around. He had been wandering mindlessly as he had recalled Rita Skeeter’s visit earlier, and now he had no idea where he’d ended up. He considered sending a Patronus to Hermione and asking for her to meet with him. He wanted to confront her—and Krum, for that matter—and demand to know what the bloody hell was going on, but even he knew that now was not the time for that. Not when just the thought of his two former lovers—his only lovers—moving on together without him made him want to punch the brick wall beside him.

Taking stock of his surroundings, Ron discovered that his feet had carried him several blocks away from the Ministry, down one of the busy public streets that was usually bustling with activity thanks to the many restaurants, bars, and clubs that lined the street, extending into the air several storeys.

It wasn’t that busy now though, whether that was because of the fact that it was a Tuesday, or that it happened to be the lull between the evening dinner rush and when the nightclubs really kicked into gear, Ron didn’t know. His tummy let out a rumble and it dawned on him that he hadn’t had anything to eat for hours. He had managed to grab a quick falafel wrap just before lunch but hadn’t eaten anything since. No wonder he had entertained fantasies of hexing that Skeeter wench; she was hard enough to take when he wasn’t hangry.

Scanning his options, his gaze settled on a pub halfway down the street that he’d never actually been in. If the garishly lit neon sign hanging above the entryway halfway up the building of two roosters facing off against each other, mirror images, wasn’t enough to give away what the target clientele was, the fact that the only patrons seemed to be men would.

Ron had been down this street countless times, either with friends or to grab a quick drink after work with some other Aurors, but that particular pub had never been the destination. It was probably the weird blend of frustration, exhaustion, and desperation that had him looking down the street and crossing over towards the bar. Once he was over there though, a moment of indecision washed over him and he stood frozen on the doorstep, staring at the handle.

“Are you in, or out?” Ron startled at the voice that came from just behind him, and he whirled around to see a group of three men standing beside him.

“Me?” he asked stupidly.

“Ooooo, that boy is so far ‘in’ he’s living in Narnia!” One of the men, a tall brunette wearing a fitted red silk shirt that was only buttoned halfway up his chest under a black wool coat said before breaking into a round of laughter with one of his friends.

“Be nice. We were all scared little first-timers once,” the third member of the trio said, slapping the man on the arm and then stepping towards Ron. “This your first time at the Two Cocks, sweetheart?”

The man had to be around his age, but he spoke softly, as if he was trying hard not to startle Ron. Ron glanced quickly back at the door, up at the glowing neon sign, and then back at the friendly man. “Oh...um...yeah. I guess…?”

The man stepped in front of him; he was shorter than Ron, his hair was an ash blond, the grey tones picking up the neon light and looking almost blue.  _ The eye colour is wrong _ , Ron thought as he looked into his eyes, a pastel green corona interior blended into a soft cornflower blue, with a deeper ring of blue around the outside. Ron’s brows drew together in confusion, wondering where that thought had come from, but then the man was leaning into his personal space and all thought fled Ron’s mind for a fraction of a second, only to flood his mind with a million questions and doubts in the next.

Was this man—this stranger—about to kiss him? Did he want that? What was he even doing?

Before he could find answers to any of those questions, something banged into his shoulder and he realised that the blond man had merely been reaching past him to open the door. Ron shuffled out of the way and the other two men walked confidently inside, not sparing him a second thought. But to his surprise, the blond man merely stood across from him, holding the door ajar and staring expectantly at Ron.

“After you,” the man said, gesturing with his spare hand for Ron to enter. Ron didn’t move right away, indecision feeling like nails through his feet holding him to the ground, but then the hammer claw of curiosity pulled those nails out and he found himself stepping through the doorway and into the dark interior of the pub.

All around him were tables of men. Some seemed to have a higher than average fondness for leather while others were dressed in shirts made of neon-coloured fishnet-like material. And still others just looked like normal blokes, like anyone he could pass on the street or in the hallways of the Ministry.

“Why don’t we go get a drink?” Ron startled, so overwhelmed by the scene in front of him that he had forgotten the man behind him.

“Don’t you want to go find your friends?” Ron asked uncertainly. He was feeling a little overwhelmed right now and he desperately wanted to accept the near-stranger’s offer, but he didn’t want to appear desperate.

“They’ll be fine on their own for a while. You look like you could use a friend right now. Marcus,” the man said, holding out his hand, his winter coat already removed and hanging over his forearm.

Ron stared at the proffered hand for a moment before the Knut finally dropped that the man was introducing himself. His hand shot up and shook the offered hand eagerly, the other man looking a bit jostled by Ron’s overly vigorous gesture. “Ron We—ekes.” Ron wasn’t sure what made him lie about his name, and Marcus seemed to scrutinise him for a moment before his face cleared and he smiled at Ron.

“It’s nice to meet you, Ron Weekes. Now, drink?”

Ron nodded eagerly and the man laughed before grabbing his wrist and dragging him across the crowded room towards the long bar that made up the entire back wall of the pub. Once they reached their destination, Marcus dropped his arm and flagged down the attention of the bartender while Ron stripped off his coat, sweat already beading on his neck in the much higher temperature of the crowded room.

Once they had their pints and an order of chips for Ron, they managed to snag a small, round table and sat down. They chatted amiably, drifting from topic to topic as they slowly depleted their pints and Ron finished his chips—which Marcus watched him eat enviously. When Ron offered him one of the deep-fried snacks, Marcus shook his head and held up his hands, warding it off, claiming that if he had one, he’d have to have a whole packet, and then he’d have to spend half the day at the gym to make up for it.

At the mention of the gym, Ron found his eyes wandering down the man’s body; he was about the same height as Harry, which was considerably shorter than Ron himself, but unlike Harry, who had always seemed rather slim, this bloke had a decent amount of muscle, the material of his shirt pulling tight across his biceps as he unbuttoned the cuffs of his sleeves and methodically rolled up each sleeve.

“See something you like?” Marcus asked, his tone playful, and Ron’s eyes shot back up to his face to find a smile full of promise there.

Ron could feel the rush of warmth that told him that his face was flushing from embarrassment, but he doubted Marcus would be able to see it in the low light of the room. “Maybe…” he said uncertainly. There was no doubt that he was intrigued by the idea, but the nerves that had gradually laid down their arms while they had been chatting about inconsequential things were now standing at attention once more.

Marcus shifted his chair a little closer and leaned in, his knee grazing against Ron’s under the table. It was the barest of touches, but Ron felt a zing of anticipation spread up from the point of contact, aiming straight for his cock. “Your first time should be with someone that will take their time, make it special.”

Ron coughed, clearing his throat, his mouth suddenly awash with saliva at the offer wrapped in those sultry words. “I’m not a virgin though. Not really. I’ve sucked a cock before,” Ron spat out, wincing at how desperate the words came out.

Marcus let out a low chuckle and leaned forward, elbow resting on the table between them and chin resting on his palm. “Even better. I doubt there’s a man in here that would pass up the chance to have his cock sucked by those sweet, pink lips of yours.”

Ron didn’t think the dead of night would be enough to hide the blush he could feel on his face now. He felt like the heat that was emanating from all the excess blood rushing through his veins would be enough to warm the entire room.

“Oh...I...um…” Ron stammered, unsure how to respond to that. Casual banter had transitioned from teasing flirtation straight to the kind of dirty talk that you could expect from one of those FLewd Lines that they advertised near the back of the Daily Prophet.

A growing heat began to register in his lust-addled brain and it took him a few seconds to process that it was not the flush of embarrassment and was, in fact, very highly localised to his left wrist. When it finally sank in that it was the personal alarm bracelet that was paired with Malfoy’s, the cool, professional demeanour he donned as an Auror fell over him, vanishing his previous embarrassment as if it was an Invisibility Cloak that he had just thrown on.

Standing up, Ron fished out the wallet with Muggle money in it from his back pocket, pulled out a £20 note, and dropped it on the table. “I’m really sorry, but I have to go.”

Marcus sat back, looking surprised and perhaps a little bit hurt. “I’m sorry if I pushed too hard,” he said quickly. “I thought I was picking up a vibe that you were interested, but if I was wrong, I’ll back off. You don’t need to run off.”

Ron slipped his coat on, the metal of the bracelet heating up even more, insistent. He gave Marcus an apologetic look and tried to explain, “It’s not you. You’re great! I just forgot something that I have to do and it’s really urgent. Thank you for being so nice to me!”

He didn’t wait to hear Marcus’s response, pushing and jostling his way through the loitering bodies until he’d made it back to the door. Bursting through it, he turned right and rushed down the street, veering right again when he reached the alley he’d been heading for.

The bracelet was an inferno now, scorching his flesh as he ran down the alley, slipping between the tall buildings far enough that he didn’t think anyone would come and investigate the sharp cracking noise as he Apparated to Draco.


	13. Draco

Draco shrank further inwards on himself when a sharp burst of noise pierced his ears. He struggled to decide whether he wanted to keep his arms wrapped protectively around his shins where his legs were pulled in close to his chest, or whether he wanted to use them to block out the angry shouts coming from the other side of the flimsy door, the only protection between him and the man on the other side.

The slats of light that were streaming in through the louvred doors formed an irregular, splotchy pattern as a pair of long legs and black shoes came to a stop in front of the door. Draco slammed his eyes shut, buried his knees into his eye sockets, and covered his ears with his hands, desperate to block out all sensory perception.

There was a pregnant pause and Draco felt his mind start to drift afloat as he held his breath, desperately trying to stay quiet and not draw attention to himself. But as the thin doors rattled, folding open and letting in a rush of light, a squawk of terror still managed to escape his chest, despite the lack of air to fuel it. Draco scrambled back further into the closet, slipping further behind the protective drape of robes, as if they could shield him from the next assault.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, body folded in close, as he waited to feel the squeeze of those cold fingers around his throat again, but gradually a perplexing sound began to filter through his panic and fear. He couldn’t place it at first, the discordantly soothing rhythm so at odds with his expectations that his mind was having difficulty sorting out the meaning.

Eventually, a deeply buried memory floated up from the recesses of his mind: a woman leaning over him, stroking her hand over his forehead and caressing his hair back, only to come back and start again, all the while singing a soft melody to him. He was not sure if the memory was real—he couldn’t make out the woman’s face and though it sounded like his mother, he couldn’t reconcile this tender, loving action with his mother as he knew her—but with it came a sense of safety and security. He recognised the song now as a nursery rhyme, the soft, lilting chords designed to soothe upset children.

He kept his head down, but he tentatively lowered his arms and the soft singing grew in volume, though still quite low. Draco wrapped his arms back around his legs, holding them in close, not willing to accept that the nightmare was over… perhaps this was just some trick meant to lull him into security only to make it all the worse with a renewed attack.

There was movement, and he could hear the other person settling themselves down on the floor of the closet in front of them, just on the other side of the dark black robes hanging between them. Draco jumped at the shift, his breaths speeding up and sawing in and out of him once more, but the soft singing began again and he once again began to relax.

He wasn’t sure how long they sat there, but eventually, the low song drifted away and was replaced by a cautious question, “Draco? Are you okay?”

Draco recognised the voice, and he lifted his hand up, pulling aside the heavy fabric of the robes the tiniest sliver to confirm that it was, in fact, Ronald Weasley. Perhaps if Draco weren’t in shock, he would have been able to read the expression that Ron was regarding him with, but in that moment, all he registered was the familiar auburn hair, the wide bridge of his nose dusted with freckles, and the wide jaw.

“What happened, Draco?” He shook his head at Ron’s question, suddenly wanting to be anywhere but in the flat that he had called home for the last five years.

“I don’t—I can’t be here,” Draco whispered. He grabbed hold of his legs to stop the trembling that had started in his hands.

“Okay,” Ron quickly acceded. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. Where do you want to go?”

“Umm…” Tears of desperation threatened to break free as Draco found himself drawing a blank for places he could go. He didn’t want to put Pansy at risk or make her worry by asking Ron to take him to her place, and his mother lived in France—hardly a convenient distance to travel on such short notice. Not to mention that he had no idea how his mother would handle him showing up bruised and shaken late at night unannounced. “I don’t know,” he managed to croak through a sob that escaped him at the desperate realisation that he didn’t have anyone to turn to.

Ron looked undecided for a moment and then his lips flattened and he nodded his head, as if coming to a decision. “Okay, I know where we can go.” He pushed himself up to a kneeling position and then pulled aside the robe on the other side to look at Draco. “Can I… um… help you? You know, to get out of there?”

Draco stared at Ron’s proffered hand for a moment and then gingerly reached up and placed his own hand in it. If Ron noticed that his hand was shaking, he didn’t acknowledge it. He just allowed Draco to use him as leverage to pull himself out of the dark closet.

When Draco emerged from his protective shelter and was standing in the middle of his studio flat, Ron flushed, and it was only then that Draco noticed that he was stark naked, the towel he had been wearing earlier long since lost in the tussle. Ron shepherded him over to sit on the edge of the bed and looked around quickly before spotting the dressing gown that was slung over the plush, velvet-covered armchair in the corner. Grabbing it, he helped Draco put it on, holding it up so Draco could slide his arms into the cool, silk sleeves, and then pulling it closed to provide Draco with a layer of modesty.

“Do you think you’d be okay Side-Along Apparating?” Ron asked uncertainly. He had been very careful the last few minutes, his proffered hand the only point of contact between them. Even as he’d helped Draco into the dressing gown, he’d taken special care not to touch Draco without warning, and Draco was grateful for the consideration. He felt raw and exposed, the sanctity of his home violated, and he wasn’t sure how he would react right now if someone made a move to touch him.

Draco bit his lip nervously, but it really did seem like his best option at the moment. He kept finding his eyes scanning the room, looking for somewhere where his attacker could be lurking. He was beginning to feel itchy just sitting there, and he wanted to be anywhere else. He nodded, a single, abrupt bob of his head.

“Okay, when you’re ready.” Ron stood in front of him, turned to the side with his arm to Draco. He didn’t rush Draco, just waited for him to accept the invitation.

Draco stood up and tucked the sides of the dressing gown together, tying it tightly around himself, then took a few steps forward and wrapped his hands around Ron’s bicep. He could feel pinpoints of wetness on the fabric where snowflakes must have melted.

“Are you ready?” Ron asked gently.

“Yes,” he said, his voice still raw from his attack, but with more strength beneath it. Tightening his grip on Ron’s arm, Draco dipped his forehead down against Ron’s shoulder as he felt the familiar yanking hook of Apparition in his torso.

  
  


Draco felt his bare feet land on thick carpeting, but he didn’t open his eyes just yet. He and Ron stood there for a moment in silence, Draco’s grip tight on Ron’s arm and taking an odd sort of comfort from its strength and stability.

Eventually, Draco slid his eyes open and peeled his stiff fingers from Ron’s coat, taking a step back and wrapping his arms around his torso as he took in the room around him. The ceiling was low, making you feel like you might have to stoop at any moment to duck under a low-hanging rafter. He was standing in the middle of an arrangement of living room furniture, the floral material somewhat faded with age, well-used. To his right there was a large stone fireplace, banked so that only the faintest flicker of dancing flames could be seen through the burned-out husks of soot-coated logs. To his left, past Ron, he could see a wooden staircase disappearing through the ceiling and leading to the floor above. The house smelled of fresh bread and clean laundry, and Draco took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the soothing scents.

Just then, a great crashing came from the staircase, and among the groaning creaks, emerged two pairs of slippered feet. They descended quickly but cautiously down the stairs and Draco sank back as he registered the arms of the first figure raised, weapon in hand.

“It’s okay, it’s just my mum and dad,” Ron assured him, but all Draco could focus on was the strange weapon that was being wielded at them.

“Ron?! What on Earth?” shouted a brash female voice.

“Dad, can you put down the needles?” Ron asked calmly, holding his hands out, palms up, in a non-threatening gesture, trying to diffuse the situation.

“What? Oh…” Arthur Weasley said, sounding confused. He seemed to take notice for the first time that he was holding a pair of long knitting needles above his head like a knife, ready to stab down, and he lowered them in a daze before setting them down on a sideboard.

“What were you thinking Apparating in here in the middle of the night! You scared us half to death!” Ronald’s mother chided him, her voice still raised in alarm. When Draco flinched behind Ron, her eyes slid over to him, seeming to notice him for the first time. Her brows furrowed as she studied him and when she spoke again, her tone was softer. “Why is the Malfoy boy with you?”

Despite the fear of the evening, Malfoy almost snorted at that. He hadn’t been a ‘boy’ for years now. He didn’t say anything though, just thankful that whatever misplaced motherly instinct made her refer to him as such had coincided with her no longer yelling.

“And he’s bleeding!” Mrs Weasley pulled her wand out of the pocket of her bathrobe and pointed it at him, causing him to flinch. A look of concern pulled at her features until she rearranged them into a reassuring smile. “I was just going to clean you off, dear.”

Draco hesitated for a moment but eventually nodded and he felt a warm rush of magic wash over him. Mrs Weasley’s magic felt like the soft brush of a feather against his skin and it was gone too soon. Mrs Weasley simply nodded when he said, “Thank you,” in a whisper.

“Remember that case I’ve been working on?” When his parents nodded, Ron continued, “Well, it was Draco’s case.”

“Continuing his father’s penchant for the Dark Arts, I’d imagine,” Arthur interrupted, shooting Draco a suspicious look. But before Draco could defend himself, Ron did.

“No, dad, he isn’t. He’s the victim here.”

Draco bristled at the use of the word ‘victim’, not liking how it made him feel weak and powerless, but before he could defend himself from this defence of him, Ron continued.

“He’s been attacked… or something.” Ron glanced back quickly at Draco before turning back to address his parents. “We haven’t had a chance to discuss it yet, but he needed somewhere safe to go, so I brought him here.”

Draco expected them to refuse, to demand Draco seek haven with one of his Death Eater-loving friends and leave their home immediately, but to his surprise they did nothing of the sort. He watched as the suspicion that had been painted all over the Weasley patriarch’s face bled away and was replaced with a creeping concern.

“Poor dear,” Molly cooed softly before pulling the afghan that she was wearing across her shoulders tighter around herself and clapping her hands. “Right. Tea.” She turned to head towards the kitchen, Draco assumed, but she turned back around and barked out an order to her husband, “Arthur, get the boy a blanket, would you?”

“Oh, right. Of course,” Arthur agreed before striding over to a tall wooden cabinet resting along the wall and bending over to rifle around in one of the drawers on the bottom. “Here you are.” He held out the blanket, a handmade quilt comprised of variously coloured patches of knitted squares to Draco, who took it hesitantly and wrapped it around his shoulders. “I’ll just go and help your mum in the kitchen and leave you two to it.”

Ron’s dad smiled warmly at them, nodding at Draco, and then disappeared through the same doorway his wife had.

Draco couldn’t understand how anyone could be as welcoming and quick to forgive as these two could be. The Malfoy family, himself included, had taken every opportunity offered in the past to put the Weasleys in their place. To remind them just how little material wealth they had available to them. To try to make them feel as unworthy as possible. But here they were, being the bigger people and offering him respite, despite this being the perfect opportunity for them to deal back some of that disdain they’d been bestowed with by his family. They were making him tea.

Draco stumbled over to the nearest couch and sank down into it, bending forward over his knees, suddenly overwhelmed and no longer able to hold it together. “Why are they being so nice to me?” he managed to ask, voice a thready whisper as he fought back tears, trying to get himself under control. His throat still hurt from earlier and he rested his hand against it tenderly, feeling out the boundaries of the bruises.

Ron didn’t say anything at first, and then the couch dipped next to him as Ron took a seat, legs spread and arms resting on them as he leaned forward. “They’re just like that. Take your time, but I need to know what happened tonight.”

Draco sucked in a few deep breaths and swiped his fingers across each eye, brushing away the handful of tears that had managed to break free. In a low voice, as if fearful that the man who attacked him might somehow hear him and come back, Draco recounted everything that he could remember about the attack. Ron carefully asked him a barrage of questions, prompting him to poke and prod his memory of the hours they’d been separated and whether anything out of the ordinary had happened, but nothing had.

Sometime into the subtle interrogation, Mrs Weasley came in bearing a tray with a plate of assorted biscuits and mugs of tea for both of them. When Draco feebly thanked her, she waved it away, proclaiming tea mandatory for moments like this.

She then left them alone again and Ron continued questioning Draco, asking him a plethora of questions about all of the minutiae of the attack, from the moment he’d seen the attacker to when he’d come to and found himself alone and had shut himself inside the closet. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Mrs Weasley came back into the room and chastised Ron for hounding Draco with the same questions over and over, betraying that she’d obviously been listening in. Draco sat back, sipping the tea and letting it soothe his raw vocal chords, as Ron and his mother good-naturedly sniped at each other. It was amusing, watching Ron and his mother bicker together, following patterns that had been established years ago and probably never changed. It reminded him of he and his own mother and how they always seemed to have the same arguments. Family always seemed to have an uncanny way of knowing just how to push your buttons.

When Ron, inevitably, lost their argument, he shot his mother an aggrieved look as she turned to Draco and gave him a kindly look. “Would you like a nice, hot bath, dear?”

“Yes, thank you. That would be nice,” Draco agreed. Even though he’d showered earlier, now that the option had presented itself, he wanted nothing more than to wash the feel of that man’s hands off of him.

“Ronniekins, go and run a bath for Draco.” Turning to Draco, she asked, “Is it alright if I call you Draco, dear?” When he nodded, completely at a loss when faced with such overwhelming consideration, she turned back to her son. “And go rustle up a pair of your old jammies, Ronniekins. He’s going to catch a cold in that flimsy, little dressing gown. I’ll go get Percy’s room all set up for him.”

With that, she rushed out of the room and disappeared from sight up the staircase, with Draco still staring bemusedly after her. He and Ron stood there frozen for a moment before Ron sighed and waved his hand, gesturing for Draco to follow him. “Come on. I’ll show you where the bathroom is.”

Draco tried to stop himself, he really did, but there was no stopping it. “Thanks… Ronniekins.”

He held his breath, cursing himself and his inability to not needle the man, even though he and his parents had been nothing but kind to him tonight. Ron watched him for a moment, but then, to Draco’s relief, he huffed out a laugh. “Watch it,” he warned, but there was no force behind it.

Draco followed Ron up the stairs, each step creaking out a different melody as they ascended, but rather than it being creepy like in the horror movies that Muggles love to watch, it made the place seem cosy and inviting. Almost a challenge, to become so familiar with the house that you could make it sing, if you wanted.

Ron showed him to the bathroom and then pointed to his brother Percy’s room, which was two doors and a few half-steps up the hall. Nothing in the Burrow seemed to be constructed at right angles and there were steps scattered seemingly randomly, split-levels themselves split. After that, Ron left him alone and Draco enjoyed the luxury of the first bath he’d had in almost a year. His own flat was far too small to fit even an average-sized bathtub, so the only time he got to have them now was when he was visiting his mother in France.

The Weasleys’ tub was over-sized with high edges, an old-fashioned copper tub which Draco would bet is an authentic antique and not one of the replicas that was popular among the upper crust. It wasn’t uncommon to see the large features floating free in the middle of bathrooms of wide marble expanses in home design advertisements. In contrast, this tub was crammed into a corner of the small room, a pile of freshly laundered, folded towels resting on a wicker basket squeezed between it and the counter.

Draco sank into the water and let the heat seep into him. He conjured a thick layer of bubbles and idly ran his hands through them, arranging them in piled mounds before smoothing them out again. He stayed in there for a long time, the tub apparently charmed to keep the water warm as long as needed without any intervention on his part, and he missed living in a wizarding home where simple luxuries like that could be used without concern for the Statute of Secrecy.

He probably would have stayed in there until morning if it weren’t for the soft knock on the door. “Is everything alright in there? Do you need anything?”

Draco sat up at the sound of Mrs Weasley, quickly arranging the remaining bubbles strategically in case she decided to walk in. He was grateful for her hospitality, but he definitely didn’t want her to see him naked as the day he was born. “I’m fine, thank you,” he croaked out.

“Alright, well the bed is all made up for you and I’m just going to leave you some jammies.” He sat up straighter as the door creaked open a fraction, but to his relief, she didn’t come in; only her hand emerged through the thin crack, fumbling around for a moment before making contact with the counter ledge and setting a pile of clothes down. The hand retreated and she said, “Goodnight,” softly before easing the door shut once more.

  
It wasn’t long after that that Draco pulled himself up and out of the tub, drying himself off before pulling on the flannel pyjamas. The orange and green striped bottoms were too long for him, but he pulled them up so that they were bunched up around his ankles. A similar solution was used to push the solid orange sleeves up over his elbows.

To his surprise, under the pyjamas, he found a familiar knitted jumper, the solid, ochre yarn broken up with a rust-coloured R pattern. He stroked his finger over the curve of the letter, admiring it. He used to gleefully mock the patented Weasley jumper with all of the other Slytherins, the handmade clothing item haughtily declared a sartorial monstrosity. He never wanted to examine, then, how perhaps part of the reason that he liked to mock them so much was that he was jealous of the symbol of how much the Weasley children were loved. He received weekly parcels of sweets, ostensibly from his mother, but what he never told anyone was that she merely paid the bill and left the execution to Honeydukes. She never took the time to hand-select and wrap the chocolates for him, nothing like the amount of effort that Molly Weasley must have put into these yearly traditional presents.

Pulling the jumper on, Draco slipped out of the bathroom, tendrils of steam licking out and rolling down the hallway behind him as he made his way to Percy’s bedroom. This room was just as orderly and neat as Draco would have imagined the Head Boy’s room to be, had he taken the time to imagine such a thing.

Folding back the covers on the narrow, twin-sized bed, Draco slipped between them, the lingering warmth of a Warming Spell still noticeable on his bare toes. Exhausted from the day’s events, Draco’s head had barely touched the pillow before he was out, the howling wind whipping around the erratically shaped building making it creak and sing him to sleep.


	14. Ron

The ghoul’s banging on the pipes above his head would have been enough to pull Ron out of sleep if he had actually managed to get to sleep in the first place. Unfortunately, despite it being the wee hours of the morning, sleep eluded him. Admitting defeat, Ron tossed off his covers and made his way downstairs. He paused briefly on the second-floor landing, looking down the hallway at the door of Percy’s bedroom. It was closed tight and there didn’t appear to be any sounds coming from it, so he imagined that Draco must be asleep. He couldn’t blame him; he must have been exhausted after the day he had. One body can only take so much adrenaline before it crashes.

Ron tiptoed down the stairs, darting back and forth to avoid the worst of the creaks and groans. He wasn’t entirely surprised to find his mum and dad in the kitchen, huddled together at one end of their long dining table and clinging to hot mugs of tea.

“You guys couldn’t sleep either?” he asked as he shuffled over to the teapot and poured himself a serving.

“Your mother and I have been talking, and we wanted to talk to you about this...situation,” his father said. It was rare that his father looked serious, but this was one of those rare times. “We’re just a little concerned about whether it is safe for him to be here.”

“Your nieces and nephews will be coming over for Sunday lunch later today and, well, we just want to make sure that they won’t be at risk,” his mother explained.

“Why did you let him stay last night if you thought you were in danger?” Ron asked.

“Well, we couldn’t exactly turn him out when he looked like that, could we?” his mum scoffed. “Poor dear, he looked like he’d seen a Dementor he was so pale.”

“He’s always pale,” Ron quipped, but neither of them seemed to find it funny.

“I don’t know if you’ve read the reports that the Ministry has on file for the Malfoy family from back in the day, but they have a long history of using manipulation and lies to get their way. That father of his,” a look of pure hatred contorted his father’s usually genial features before he shook his head and pinned Ron with a steely look, “he was a real piece of work, and you know what they say about the apple not falling far from the tree.”

Ron took a seat across from his dad at the table, his mother between them, and took a sip of the tea. It was only lukewarm, so he took out his wand and hit it with a Warming charm. Taking another sip, the piping hot beverage burned the top of his mouth, and he swished it around a few times until it was cool enough to swallow. He prodded the burnt roof of his mouth with his tongue while he tried to think of what to say.

“I know what you’re saying and, believe me, I know what the Malfoys were like back then. And when I was first assigned this case, I would have readily agreed with you, but I just don’t think he’s made it up. You saw him last night; I don’t think he’s capable of faking that.”

“Yes, he did look like he’d been through something terrifying,” his mother agreed, before continuing, “which only strengthens our concern that him being here might be putting the grandchildren at risk.”

“Yeah, I get what you’re saying,” Ron conceded. He hadn’t actually thought of that last night; he’d just been so concerned with getting Draco out of that flat and to somewhere where he would feel safe, and The Burrow was the first place he’d thought of when he’d thought of ‘safe’. “Do you think he could stay here for a few hours? Until I can talk to Robards?”

“Of course,” his mother promised, smiling reassuringly at him. “I imagine he’ll be asleep most of that time anyway.”

“Thanks, mum, dad.” Ron pushed his mug towards the middle of the table, pushed his chair back, and stood up.

“You’re not going to the Ministry  _ now,  _ are you?” Molly asked, sounding scandalised.

“Yeah, I can’t sleep anyway and sometimes Robards gets in early. He says he likes the quiet before other people get in because he can actually get more than five minutes of consecutive work done on something before he gets interrupted,” Ron explained. “Besides, I want to review the Army investigation file and see if they’ve made any progress there.”

“But it’s Sunday!” his mum protested. “Surely he won’t be into the office on a Sunday!”

“Criminals don’t respect the weekends, Mollywobbles,” his dad offered.

“I bet if that man had someone to be home  _ with _ , he wouldn’t spend all of his time cooped up in his office,” his mother mused under her breath before her face lit up with excitement. “Oh! Arthur! What if we set him up with that woman in your department, Cordula Brecher? Didn’t she just split from the chap she was seeing?”

“Muuuuummmm, please don’t try to set up my boss.” Ron couldn’t help the whinging tone to his words. His mum  _ loved _ to play matchmaker, but the only person in the family that seemed unaware of how abysmal she was at it was herself.

His dad gave him an apologetic look and then winked before turning to his wife. “I believe I remember her mentioning that she’s seeing someone else, I’m afraid.”

“Already? Boy, she certainly seems to move on quickly,” his mother said critically. “Oh well, that’s too bad. I’m sure there must be someone else...”

“On a different note,” his dad interrupted when Ron shot him a desperate look, “I was thinking that maybe this year we should do a Secret Santa exchange. Save everyone a lot of shopping and gift wrapping.”

“Oh, Arthur! We can’t do that! All the children will be  _ so _ disappointed!”

Ron mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ at his dad and left them to it, his mum lamenting that Christmas just wouldn’t be the same without seeing the joy and excitement on their grandchildren’s faces on Christmas day when they saw the heaps of presents under the tree.

  
  


When Ron stepped into the offices of the DMLE, he was surprised to find a flurry of activity, much more than was usual for a Sunday morning.

“What’s happened?” he asked, snagging Alistair as he bustled past, arms full of a teetering stack of parchments.

“There’s been another Army attack. Didn’t you get the message?” he asked, looking harried and vaguely judgmental.

Ron patted his hips where his robe pockets would normally be, and it wasn’t until that moment that he realised that he’d forgotten to put on his robes. He was still wearing the jeans and mustard yellow jumper that he’d had on the previous night, and the plastic Contact Card stylised to look like a Muggle credit card that the Aurors used to communicate en masse—in no small part inspired by Hermione’s famous DA coins—was still tucked into the pocket of his robe where he could picture it hanging on the back of his bedroom door. 

“I don’t have my card on me,” he explained sheepishly.

“No wonder you’re so late. Robards has been looking for you. Meanwhile, the rest of us had to drop all of our plans to come in on a Sunday and you’re off doing Merlin knows what. Must be nice to be one of the Golden Trio,” he said bitterly.

“Bugger off, Latham,” Ron barked. “Somehow I doubt you were doing anything important.” Latham had always reminded Ron of that pretentious blowhard, Justin Finch-Fletchley, and Ron’s threshold for his attitude was pretty low.

“I’ll have you know that I had to leave my very fit girlfriend naked in my bed,” Alistair retorted, rearranging the parchments in his arms, just barely catching one of them before it fell to the floor.

“Is that the girlfriend that’s old enough to be your mother?” Ron smirked, repeating the hot piece of gossip that had been circling around the office faster than one of the interdepartmental memos.

“Yeah, what of it? I like mature women. They’re so much more confident and not as silly and frivolous as girls my age. Besides, at least I have someone in my bed,” Alistair said haughtily. He cast a nervous look at Robards’s closed office door before turning back to Ron and cautioning him, “You’d better get in there before he sends a squad of hit wizards out to hunt you down.”

“Thanks,” Ron said grudgingly, but Alistair had already swept past him and was bustling off towards the archives. He opened his mouth to call after him as one of the parchments slipped under his arm and dropped to the floor, but he was already too far away. Shrugging, Ron walked over to his boss’s office and knocked brusquely twice, a bark to enter coming nearly instantaneously.

When he entered the office, he found Harry there, sitting across from Robards, and beside him was sat the Minister for Magic.

“Oh hey, Kingsley,” Ron greeted the man.

“Minister,” Robards corrected him, always a stickler for addressing Kingsley with the appropriate title and, by extension, respect.

Kingsley stood up and walked over, hand extended to Ron. They shook and Kingsley clapped him on the other shoulder as he greeted him, “Ron. You look well.”

Ron didn’t miss Kingsley’s shrewd gaze pass over him, inspecting. He’d been one of the DMLE’s top Aurors for years, and Ron was sure that the observational skills he’d developed in the job regularly proved to be of use in his new position. It always felt like nothing would escape his notice when you were talking with him.

“Thanks, yeah, I’m doing alright.”

“I was so sorry to hear about you and Hermione,” he said consolingly and Ron nodded, playing along. It’d been almost a year now, and yet every time that Ron runs into someone that he hasn’t seen since their divorce had caused a spike in Daily Prophet sales, they still treat him as if he’s as fragile as porcelain. “I’ve been meaning to swing down here and check in on you, but something always seems to come up and then I blink and the day is gone.”

“It’s alright Kings—Minister Shacklebolt,” he corrected when he caught sight of the disgruntled look on his boss’s face. “I know you’re quite busy, what with keeping the wizarding world ticking away.”

“That’s a paltry excuse, but you’re kind to offer it,” Kingsley smiled warmly at him.

“I’m sorry, Sir, but maybe the reunion can happen another time? Now that Weasley is here, we should probably go over what we know so far,” Robards suggested.

“See what I mean,” Kingsley whispered so that only Ron could hear, before spinning on his heels and taking his seat once more. Ron settled against the window ledge, hands gripping the wood as he leaned forward and crossed his legs out in front of him.

“What’s been going on?” Ron asked, trying to get a feel for the severity of the situation from Harry’s face.

“The Army has attacked a notable wizarding family,” Robards said. “The Notts.”

“Theodore Nott?” Ron asked. “He was at school with us.”

Robards looked grave. “Yes, the young Mr Nott was one of the victims, as was his wife, a woman who I believe you also may know, Astoria Greengrass?”

Ron nodded, a faint image of a brunette Slytherin who somehow managed to look both haughty and mousey at the same time tickling at his memories. “Yeah, I think she was a year or two below us.”

Harry nodded. “Two years. Her sister, Daphne, was in our year. They were both in Slytherin.”

“So do we know anything about why they targeted Nott’s family?” Ron asked. He knew that Nott’s father was one of the Death Eaters that had perished during the Second Wizarding War, but Theodore had never been charged with anything as far as Ron could remember.

“Nothing’s confirmed yet, but we’re working on the theory that their real target was Cantankerus,” Robards stated.

“Cantankerus?” Ron asked. The name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t put his thumb on it.

“He’s widely believed to be the author of the ‘Pure-Blood Directory’,” Kingsley supplied.

“Blimey! He’s still alive?!” Ron spluttered before he could stop himself. “That rubbish book predates my parents! How old is this guy?”

“He  _ was _ about 109 years old, though the record keeping back then was not as robust as it is now and we haven’t had a chance to verify his birth year in The Book of Admittance yet,” Kingsley said.

“Cantankerus was the third victim of the attack,” Robards added.

“I suppose it was only a matter of time before the Army decided to go after the author of the  _ Pure-Blood Directory _ ,” Ron said. “Seeing as how that book is basically the epitome of everything they hate.”

“Yes, we also supposed that he would be one of their intended targets, which is why we had him and his grandson and his new wife in protective Auror custody,” Robards said, face stony and carved out by the seriousness of the situation.

It took Ron a few moments to process what Robards was saying. When understanding finally dawned on him, his shoulders slunk and he looked between the three other men in the room, hoping that he was misunderstanding. “They found another safe house?” he asked incredulously.

“I’m afraid so,” Kingsley said gravely. “And, as you can imagine, the optics of this aren’t good, not for the DMLE and not for the Ministry of Magic as a whole.”

“But...how?” Ron asked incredulously. “After the Westenberg attack, we did a full turnover of all of our safe houses and got all new ones. How could they have found  _ another _ one?”

“We have a few theories, but again, nothing definitive,” said Robards. “Our first theory is something that the Department of Mysteries has been working on since Westenberg. They think it might be possible that they’re tracking magical signatures.”

“I’d heard that they were working on that, but I thought it was strictly that: a theory,” Ron said.

“The Unspeakables may have made some advancements. They’ve requisitioned a great deal of the stored Pensieve memories from the post-war trials lately from the Hall of Recall and when we asked them about it, they were their patent brand of cagey,” Robards explained.

Ron turned to Kingsley and asked, “Have they figured out a way to do it?”

“I don’t know,” Kingsley said.

“What do you mean, ‘you don’t know’?” Ron asked, incredulous. “You’re the Minister for Magic! Just make them tell you!”

“That’s not how it works, I’m afraid,” Kingsley said sadly. “The Department of Mysteries has always been a separate entity, incorruptible by the rest of the Ministry staff, even myself.”

“But—” Ron began to protest, but Kingsley spoke over him.

“As frustrating as that might be in this moment, those protocols are there for a reason. The Department of Mysteries has a great deal of magic that could be very dangerous if put in the hands of an unscrupulous individual. Can you imagine how much more horrible the war could have gone if Pius Thicknesse, Imperiused by Voldemort, had managed to get his hands on the secrets in there?”

Ron scowled. “Well, yeah, but nobody would ever compare you to Voldemort.”

“Wouldn’t they?” Kingsley asked. “If I started swinging my weight around and demanding the DoM get in line, it wouldn’t be long before the Alliance would accuse me of being a despot, stopping at no lengths to silence them.”

Ron wanted to argue, to say that no one could be that daft, but he was under no illusions. After all, they’d been accusing Ron himself of pure-blood elitism for months, so it wasn’t impossible that they’d target Kingsley for criticism for the same reason. “And what’s the other theory?” he asked gruffly.

“Your partner here has just come up with another possible explanation,” Robards said, nodding his head in Harry’s direction, indicating that he should share the theory of his own devising.

“Sometimes, the simplest explanation is the right one.” Harry paused for a moment before continuing, his face grave, “The only people that knew the location of the Nott safe house are in this department. We might have a mole in the DMLE, someone that  _ told _ the Army where they could find the Notts.”

“No, no way,” Ron protested, shaking his head. “There’s no way that any of the Aurors, any of our co-workers, our friends, would do that. No.” Ron refused to believe that anyone he knew here would betray them like that. They had all had one another’s back countless times, facing down Dark Wizards together. They had all sworn a vow to protect wizarding society and its citizens. It may not have been an Unbreakable Vow, but was as good as. There’s no way any of the Aurors would do that.

“Think about it, Ron. It makes sense,” Harry urged. “I know that none of us wants to think that there could be a turncoat in our midst, but it would be reckless of us not to at least consider the possibility.”

Ron may not like it, but he had to admit that Harry had a point. A part of him, the part that helped him defeat McGonagall’s life-sized wizard chess set in their first year, couldn’t deny that it was a risk that needed to be tested before it could be ruled out. Refocusing, Ron began to strategise, plotting ahead to what the next few steps were and how they could get out in front of the Army. For months now, they had been chasing the Army around the board, and Ron was ready to turn the tables on them.

“Okay, so what’s our next step?” he asked. “How do we proceed?”

“Our first priority is securing the safety of the rest of the witches and wizards in protective custody,” said Kingsley. “Right now, the only people that know about this possible mole are sitting in this room, and we’re going to keep it that way. I’ve set up two new safe houses and I am the secret keeper, so if something happens to them there, then we’ll know that the Army is tracking their magical signatures.”

“Or that you’re the mole,” Ron said. Robards shot him an angry glare, but Kingsley just laughed.

“It’s fine, Gawain. That is a fair point, Mr Weasley. No one should be above all suspicion,” he agreed. “If another attack happens, then I would expect your department to conduct a thorough investigation of my potential involvement.”

“We’re going to need three safe houses though,” Ron blurted out. With all the excitement, the reason he’d come in today had almost slipped his mind.

“What does that mean, Weasley?” Robards barked, sounding unimpressed by the surprise information.

Ron spent the next few minutes recounting the events of the last twenty-four hours, starting with Spencer’s disappearance and subsequent rediscovery and finishing with what he’d discovered when he’d Apparated into Malfoy’s flat.

“Why haven’t you filed a report of this yet?” Robards asked accusingly.

“I was planning to do that today, sir,” Ron assured him. “My first priority was removing Mr Malfoy from the potentially dangerous area. I questioned him as soon as I got him somewhere safe and I took extensive notes.” Ron really hoped that Robards didn’t ask to see those notes right now because they were in his notebook, which was tucked beside his Contact Card in his work robes at home.

“Are you still thinking he could be faking this whole thing?” Robards asked. Kingsley didn’t look surprised by any of this, so Ron supposed that Robards must have debriefed him on what was going on.

“Nah, I don’t think so,” Ron said, shaking his head. “I saw him minutes after the attack, and you’d have to be an award-winning actor to pull that off. That was real.”

Robards seemed to accept Ron’s change of heart without contest. “Alright. In that case, we’ll need to work on the assumption that Malfoy has been targeted by the Army.”

“Two attacks in one day…” Harry began, trailing off.

“Spit it out, Potter.” Robards probed him to continue.

Harry looked uncertain, like he was trying to read one of Hermione’s old Arithmancy textbooks. “It’s just that, well, that seems pretty ambitious for the Army.” He looked around the room, noted the intrigued and confused looks, and continued, “It’s just that, from all of the intelligence we’ve been able to gather on the Army, they’re small. They seem to have a tiny fraction of the numbers of the Alliance.”

“Right, which is part of the reason they’ve been so hard to pin down; the fewer the people, the less loose lips available to sink the ship,” Robards agreed.

“Exactly,” Harry said, sounding increasingly more confident in his theory. “So it seems weird that they would divide their focus and resources to plan and coordinate two different assaults on the same night.”

“But on the other hand, maybe they figured that they could get the jump on us by doing two together. Divide our resources. Plus, they have to know that we’re going to be ramping up our security even more after this. Maybe they were concerned that one of the targets would become inaccessible after that,” Robards suggested.

“We’re getting lost in the Gillyweed here,” Kingsley said. “It doesn’t gain us any progress sitting here and conjecturing about what the Army might have been thinking.”

“You’re right, Minister Shacklebolt,” Robards agreed. “As Weasley said, we work on the assumption that Malfoy is on the Army’s hit list. We’ll need to get him set up in a safe house.”

Kingsley shook his head. “It was difficult enough to set up two and keep it off the Ministry books. My position comes with a budget for discretionary spending for security and I paid for the two I set up out of that, but any more and we’re going to risk someone getting suspicious and digging into where the money’s going.”

“Maybe we can stick Malfoy in with one of the other people?” Harry suggested.

“And make it even easier for the Army? Give them the chance to kill two Diricawls with one stone?” said Ron.

“Besides, the safe houses are not luxury mansions. They would be pretty cramped if we tried to shove another adult in there,” Kingsley said.

Robards seemed to be thinking for a moment before his face set into a look of determination. “Alright then, we’ll have to take Malfoy off the grid and relocate him to somewhere that nobody would think to look for him. And far enough away that if the Army is tracking his magical signature, he’ll be far enough away that, hopefully, they won’t be able to pick up a trace of it.”

“Like where?” Harry asked.

“I have an idea,” Ron added, before he could think better of it. All three sets of eyes turned to him, waiting for him to elaborate. “But I’d rather not say where. Like you said, the fewer people that know, the better.”

Robards didn’t look thrilled at the idea of Ron being less than fully forthcoming, but he didn’t say anything when Kingsley voiced his agreement with Ron’s suggestion. “I think that’s wise. Until we know the department is secure, the more we can keep a lid on this, the better.”

“I want you and Malfoy out of the city before nightfall,” Robards ordered, and Harry let slip a snort of surprise.

“Sir, you can’t be suggesting that Ron has to go with Malfoy?” he said.

“Auror Weasley’s assignment is to protect Mr Malfoy, and I hardly think sending Mr Malfoy off to Merlin knows where alone is the best way to achieve that,” Robards said flatly.

“Yeah, but—” Harry began to protest, but Ron cut across him.

“We’ll be out of the city this afternoon,” Ron promised, ignoring the incredulous look that Harry was shooting his way.

“Good,” Robards nodded his approval before adding, “if there’s anything you need, just ask. To be safe, you both should avoid using your magic if at all possible. There are just too many unknowns at this point, and if they’re tracking magical signatures, it would be best if you didn’t give them a beacon to track.”

“I understand why Malfoy shouldn’t use his magic, but why should I avoid using magic?” Ron asked, thrown off guard.

“If we have a mole, they’re going to notice that you’re missing. And they know Malfoy is your assignment. It won’t take them long to deduce where you’ve gone, so they may try tracking your signature as well. Is that going to be a problem?” Robards asked.

To be honest, Ron had kind of been counting on magic for what he had in mind, but it wasn’t necessarily impossible without it… it just wasn’t going to be easy. An idea occurred to him and he asked hopefully, “What about spells and charms that were cast by other people? Do you think it would be safe to use those?”

Kingsley and Robards exchanged a look and seemed to come to an agreement before Robards turned back to Ron. “That would probably be safe enough. If it wasn’t one of your magical signatures, I don’t see why the Army would think to trace it.”

“Good,” Ron said, relieved. That would make his plan much more achievable, though he doubted that Malfoy would think so when he found out what was in store for him.

“I’m going with him,” Harry declared. “We’re partners. We should stick together.”

What Robards was about to say, Ron never found out, because he declined Harry’s offer. “I need you here, mate. You’re the only person I trust to investigate what’s going on here, so I need you to get to the bottom of this. The sooner the better, because if the Army doesn’t kill Malfoy, I might.”

Gawain looked less than amused, but both Kingsley and Harry broke into smiles.

“Weasley’s right,” Gawain said. “Potter, I want you to investigate those memories that the Department of Mysteries have been so interested in. We may not be able to demand answers from them, but it doesn’t stop us from investigating ourselves. Maybe we can figure out what they’ve been up to that way.”

Harry looked disappointed and like he wanted to argue but they’d worked for Robards long enough to know that tone and he knew it wouldn’t get him anywhere. “Fine,” he said crisply.

Kingsley stood up, his towering, thick frame instantly making the room feel smaller. “I need to be off now. Good luck, gentlemen.” He walked towards the exit, his regal purple robes billowing around him. Pulling the door open, he paused and turned back to Ron and said, “Stay safe, Ron. That’s a Ministerial order.”

“Thanks, Kings. I’ll try.”


	15. Draco

“Take another sausage, dear.” Before Draco could object, Mrs Weasley—Molly, as she’d insisted he call her—dropped another of the fatty breakfast sausages onto his plate. Draco couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten so much, usually opting for a small serving of granola and Greek yoghurt in the morning, but she had been so accommodating and friendly that he didn’t have the heart to decline her offer.

“Thank you... Molly,” he added reluctantly. He’d been raised with a certain level of decorum, one that would never have allowed him to address one of his friend’s parents with so much informality as to use their first name—not that he and Weasley were friends, not really. He kind of had to force the name out, but she rewarded him with a warm smile which he awkwardly returned before she turned back to the stove.

“So you say you’ve been living in Muggle London. Tell me, do you have a telly? I’ve always wanted one of those, but they don’t seem to like all of the residual magic in the Burrow here. I brought one home once and it kept flipping to a channel with some...erm…” Mr Weasley—Arthur—paused to cast a sheepish glance at his wife’s back before lowering his voice, “ _ adult _ activities. Fred and George walked in when I was trying to change the channel back and I had to bribe them a Sickle each to keep quiet about it.”

Draco smothered a snicker of amusement behind his hand and when Molly turned around to give her husband a suspicious look, Draco quickly shoved a forkful of his sausage into his mouth.

“You’d better not be giving him any ideas,” Molly warned, pointing a grease-covered spatula in Draco’s direction. “My husband loses all of his good sense when it comes to Muggle doodahs and gadgets.”

“Nothing to worry about, Mollywobbles,” Arthur said, looking the picture of innocence as Molly chuckled at him.

“I do have a telly actually, just a small one,” Draco said, returning the conversation back to Arthur’s question. “I don’t use it much though. I mostly just bought it because my boyfriends—” Draco carefully set down his utensils and cast a nervous look at the older couple to gauge their response. Homosexuality wasn’t unheard of in the wizarding world, but it wasn’t widely embraced or talked about either.

Molly was giving him a knowing look, as if she could see exactly what was running through his mind, could read his fear and anxiety written clearly across his face as if it were the front page of the Daily Prophet. “Because your boyfriends…?” she encouraged him to continue.

With a tremulous smile, he picked up where he’d left off, “My boyfriends kept complaining that it was bizarre that I didn’t have one.”

“Do you date Muggles, then?” Arthur asked, looking surprised. Draco supposed he couldn’t blame them. When they had known him before, such a thing would have been incomprehensible.

“Oh, um, yes. Pretty much exclusively now. For the last few years anyway.”

“That’s… well, to be honest, that’s a bit of a surprise,” Arthur said.

“Well, to be honest, I didn’t have many options,” Draco admitted. “There wasn’t exactly a line of bachelors lined up around the block to date me after the war. And the ones that did want to, well…” Draco searched for a diplomatic way to summarise his wizard dating experiences since Voldemort had fallen, “they had very specific reasons for wanting to be with me. Reasons I wasn’t comfortable with.”

Arthur’s forehead furrowed as if he was trying to translate Draco’s words. Understanding gradually dawned on him and surprise gave way to consolation. Draco rushed to cut him off at the pass, not wanting to discuss that part of his past. “Dating Muggles has really helped me learn more about them though. It was very much a crash course in how to live amongst them without drawing suspicion. I would probably still be trying to figure out how to turn on the hob if I hadn’t decided that dating Muggles would be the healthier choice.”

Arthur leaned forward, looking intense. “In that case, perhaps you can tell me. How exactly does a condom work? Can you use them more than once?”

Draco coughed, choking on his half-masticated bite of sausage as Molly let out a gasp and shout of, “Arthur!”

“What? I’ve heard that ‘safe sex’ is very important. I’m just curious.”

Draco’s blush faded as Molly and Arthur sniped and bickered at each other. Draco had never been around a couple like them, that could poke fun of each other without it having any teeth. His own parents’ fights never had the playful vibe that Molly and Arthur’s did. Narcissa and Lucius’s barbs were true to their name, designed to cut and wound.

They were still arguing back and forth, Molly dramatically recalling the time that she had been chased about the house by a cursed Muggle vacuum that Arthur had brought home from work and had been tinkering with in their shed. Arthur was steadfastly holding to the belief that he could have removed the curse and charmed it to clean their floors for them automatically if he’d only had a few more days to work on it, and Molly had just angrily retorted that it had taken him two hours to pry free her hair from its rollers, when there was the sound of the Floo whooshing to life in the other room.

Not a minute later, Ron emerged in the doorway of the kitchen. He took in the scene in front of him, looking somewhat confused when he found Draco sitting at their family dining table, his plate freshly cleaned of food and him laughing along with Molly and Arthur.

“Umm, Malfoy… we need to go. Something’s come up and I’m going to have to move you somewhere else,” Ron said uncertainly, eyes trailing over to the stove where he looked longingly at a tall stack of pancakes that was sitting under a Warming charm. When Draco had complimented her on them, having never tasted pancakes that delicious before (even at Hogwarts), she had confided that the secret to her recipe was that she put applesauce in the batter.

“What’s happened, son?” Arthur asked, the previously merry atmosphere of the room bleeding away as the rest of them picked up on the tension that was painted along every muscle of Ron’s body.

“There’s been another attack and the Auror department is concerned that Malfoy may be next on their target list, so I’m going to take him somewhere safe,” he told them. “We really need to get going. Dad, do you still have that tent that Perkins loaned you?”

“I think it’s out in the shed somewhere. I’ll go look for it.” Arthur pushed his chair back and stood up, slipping out the back door of the kitchen.

“Sit and have something to eat before you go,” Molly intoned, pulling a chair out for her son.

“Mum, we really need to get going,” Ron tried to explain, but Molly was hearing nothing of it.

“It will take your father some time to find the tent in that junk heap he calls a shed, so you have time. If you’re going to be traipsing around the countryside, you’re going to need fuel in your belly.” As she spoke, she spooned out a large pile of eggs, sausages, and a stack of pancakes onto a plate.

Ron looked torn, but eventually, he conceded and sat down across from Draco at the table. His mother set the heaping plate of food down in front of him and Draco watched in surprise and horror as Ron proceeded to drown everything—absolutely everything—in a deluge of maple syrup.

Ron dug in, eating with a practised efficiency that Draco found both entertaining and somewhat appalling. Ron ate as if he was in a race, like the longer the food rested on his plate, the higher the likelihood that someone would pilfer it. Draco knew that Ron was the youngest boy in the family and he wondered if his brothers used to make a habit of stealing from Ron’s plate when they were children.

Draco managed to ask Ron a few questions between bites. Some of the numbness that had been chased away during the morning spent with Molly and Arthur returned when he heard about Theo and Astoria. He and Theo had been friendly at Hogwarts—it was hard not to be when you shared a room with someone for seven years—but he hadn’t spoken to him in years. Theo had been much more reluctant to renounce his belief in pure-blood supremacy than Draco had, and increasingly they’d shared less and less common ground until their intermittent letters dwindled down to a once a year Christmas card and then to nothing at all.

In a way, he was more sad to hear about Astoria. For a brief time, before Voldemort had been defeated once and for all, his parents had been trying to arrange a marriage between Astoria and himself. Draco had already known by that point that his bedroom interests lay elsewhere, but he had also known that, as the only Malfoy heir, it was expected of him that he must continue the Malfoy bloodline. He’d figured that if he had to take a wife, Astoria would be a suitable choice. She had always been more taciturn than her sister Daphne, often keeping to herself in the Slytherin common room, curled up in one of the reading nook window seats. Sometimes they would sit together, legs stretched out beside one another as they read in companionable silence.

There had never been any romantic feelings between them, at least not on Draco’s side, and it was only now that he realised he’d never actually stopped to consider what she had thought about the prospect of their arranged marriage. It had never really been up to them, not really, so discussing it had seemed a futile waste of time. He wondered if she’d found love with Theo, or whether control of her own fate had been elusively out of her grasp, even after the war. He knew that for many of his fellow Slytherins, the war changed very little.

Draco was still lost in memories of Astoria when Arthur returned, holding a dusty burlap sack aloft. Molly shot him a dirty look from where she was working, gradually emptying the contents of their icebox into what Draco assumed must be a magically enlarged picnic basket based on the staggering amount of food that was swallowed up in its depths, as he patted the bag and sent a cloud of dust and insect skeletons falling to the kitchen floor. Letting out an annoyed huff, Molly flourished her wand and sent a cleaning charm that Draco wasn’t familiar with at the sack until it, while not looking anywhere near brand new, wasn’t making his throat tickle just looking at it. Arthur gave his wife a grateful look and she smiled at him.

“I found it lodged behind the treadwheel. Not sure how it got there,” Arthur explained and Draco couldn’t help but notice that Molly seemed to get very invested in inspecting what had to be an almost barren icebox suddenly. But judging by the fond look Arthur gave his wife—technically her backside as she was currently bent over with her head disappeared inside the metal cabinet—Draco would bet that Arthur suspected exactly how it had made its way there. In a whispered aside to Draco, he said, “Never was much for camping.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Ron said through a mouthful of pancake, the words only barely audible. It was kind of appalling to watch, not least of which because Draco’s eyes zeroed in on a drop of syrup that was resting on the corner of Ron’s lips. Ron finished chewing and swallowed the bolus and Draco quickly looked away as the tip of Ron’s tongue peeked out from his mouth to lick away the blasted syrup. Ron’s cutlery clattered onto his now empty plate and he stood up. “And thanks for breakfast, mum. I was starving.”

“I’d like to stop by the Greengrasses before we go… wherever you’re dragging me off to,” Draco said, clearing his throat and not quite able to look at Ron right now.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t do that. For all we know, the Army may be surveilling their place in the hopes of pure-blood families coming to them,” Ron said, frowning. “It’s too much of a risk.”

“The Greengrasses and the Malfoys were quite friendly and Astoria and I were practically betrothed at one point, so I need to pay my respects to her family,” Draco stated flatly, unwilling to bend on this. He felt partly responsible for Astoria being dead now; maybe if their betrothal had actually been finalised, she would still be alive. Of course, she would also be in danger now too.

Ron looked surprised at this news and he studied Draco intently for a moment before offering, “You can Floo call them while I pack up some things. They won’t be able to track you that way.”

Draco considered it for a moment before nodding curtly and standing up. “Is there somewhere I can have a little privacy?” he asked. He wasn’t sure how Astoria’s parents and Daphne were going to react to his condolences, and he didn’t want any witnesses in case it proved upsetting. He may need a few minutes to recover himself after.

“In the living room, dear,” Molly said, hands clasped together in front of her mouth. He wasn’t sure why she was so upset, it wasn’t like the Weasleys had been close to either the Notts or the Greengrasses. Arthur handed the tent to Ron and then went over and wrapped a comforting arm around his wife as Draco made his way towards the living room. Just before he slipped out of earshot, he heard her cry out, “They were so young! The same age as Ronniekins.”

_ Of course _ , Draco thought,  _ she’s already lost one child. _ Grief was funny like that; it could rise up and overtake you even years later, never entirely predictable. Grief could soften and become more manageable, but it was always with you.

Ten minutes later, Draco pulled his head out of the fire and let it drop to his chest, his eyes closed. As he’d expected, the Greengrasses were less than thrilled to see him and Daphne had coldly stated that she blamed him for her sister’s death. If he hadn’t insisted on flouting his  _ perversions _ , her sister and he would have been married now and she never would have been targeted along with Theo. He’d wanted to tell them about his current predicament, about how it was possible that her life would only have been extended by a handful of days anyway, but he had kept quiet and let them say their piece.

“You alright?” Draco spun around at the soft question and found Ron seated on the same chesterfield as last night, a duffel bag with a long strap to go over one shoulder sitting on the cushion beside him.

Draco cleared his throat and looked at the other man defiantly. “I didn’t tell them anything about what’s happening or where we’re going, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Ron replied calmly, which irritated Draco. He wished the git would accommodate him by picking a fight so that Draco could channel all of this frustration and hopelessness he was feeling into a flat-out, no-holds-barred row.

“What do you think? Two of my friends were just murdered. I know you could care less about them and are probably relieved that that’s two less ‘evil Slytherins’ that you have to deal with, but even a dolt like you should probably be able to guess that I’m not ‘alright’,” Draco spat. He waited eagerly, silently urging Ron to take the bait and attack him. Ron’s face shifted for a flash into a look that might have been anger, his nostrils flaring slightly, but to Draco’s disappointment, it was quickly replaced by a carefully neutral look.

“So, no. You’re not alright. Got it,” Ron said before standing up. “Unfortunately, we don’t have time to deal with that right now. I’ve left you a warm change of clothes and some winter outerwear upstairs in Percy’s room. Go get changed. We leave in ten.”

“I have my own clothes, you know,” Draco said. “Surely we could swing by my flat and pick up some things—”

“Sure, yeah, that sounds like a brilliant plan. Let’s just drop by the place they’ve already proven they know they can find you at just so you can get your fancy clothes. Great plan, Malfoy,” Ron said dryly. Draco glowered at the other man because he actually did have a point—that didn’t actually sound like a very wise plan at all.

Refusing to acknowledge the sensibility of Ron’s words, Draco turned and headed up the stairs without another word, but just to prove a point, he dilly-dallied and made sure that he didn’t emerge on the staircase again until fifteen minutes later.

Maintaining the icy silence, Ron didn’t acknowledge Draco’s tardiness and merely shoved a thick black wool coat into his hands. Ron donned a similar moss-coloured coat before swinging the long strap of the duffel over his head so that the duffel was slung across his back. He shoved the wicker basket at Draco and spun around without another word, heading through the kitchen.

Molly and Arthur were loitering in the kitchen and Ron went over to them, bowing down to let his mother place a kiss on his cheek before pulling him into a hug that lasted long enough that Draco began to feel uncomfortable standing there. Eventually, Ron managed to extricate himself from his mother’s embrace and he went over to his dad. Draco expected a stolid pat on the shoulder like his own father always used to give to him, but Arthur was nothing like Lucius and he pulled Ron into a tight hug, saying something low under his breath that Draco couldn’t make out from where he was standing.

Draco was so lost in watching the warm fatherly affection, missing something which he’d never had, that he jumped when a soft touch on his bicep drew his attention.

“These will keep your hands warm, dear.” Draco looked down to see Molly holding out a pair of knitted blue mittens to him. He took the proffered mittens, touched by the thoughtful gesture. They were obviously handmade and they probably had a dozen pairs laying about, given the size of the Weasley family, but Draco was still moved that she was concerned enough about his comfort that she’d offered them to him.

“Thank you,” Draco whispered and she smiled kindly at him. By then, Ron and his dad had disengaged and were talking in low voices, faces intense. Draco crossed the kitchen and came up beside Ron just as they seemed to come to some kind of an agreement and nodded at each other.

“Thanks, Dad,” Ron said and then pulled open the kitchen door, a blast of cold air rushing into the warm kitchen.

“Be careful, son,” Arthur said, love and pride pouring out of his face as he looked at his son. Then he turned to Draco and added, “And you too, Draco.” There was no love there for Draco, but there wasn’t any hate either, which was about as much as Draco could hope for or deserved.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Draco said, defaulting to the polite formality that came as second nature to him, even now. Arthur seemed amused by him and grinned before patting Draco on the shoulder.

“Given the circumstances, I’ll understand if I don’t receive your thank-you note owl.” Draco smiled shyly at Arthur as Ron snorted and then stepped outside with Draco following him. They stopped about a metre away from the garden gate and Ron spun around, pulling out a nondescript biro from his pocket.

“It’s a Portkey,” he explained, holding it out to Draco, who looked at it curiously.

“Haven’t we already missed it?” he asked, regretting now his earlier defiant strop.

Ron looked far too pleased with himself when he said, “I figured you for the tardy type. I said ten minutes but we actually had closer to twenty-five.”

Draco pursed his lips as he reached out and grabbed hold of the Muggle writing implement. He preferred the term ‘fashionably late’, personally.


	16. Ron

They landed and immediately sank down through the foot of snow that was on the ground. Draco stumbled into him and Ron reacted on instinct, grabbing the other man around the waist to stabilise him. Draco pulled away, looking a bit peaky and Ron fought back a chuckle; apparently Harry wasn’t the only one that got a little green around the gills thanks to Portkeys.

When Draco seemed to be able to stand on his own again, Ron slid his hands away, suddenly far too conscious of Draco’s hip bones beneath them. Ron stepped back and then around Draco, walking towards the river’s edge. Once he was there, he reeled back and tossed the biro as far as he could into the centre of the river. It was unlikely that the Army would attempt to track Kingsley’s signature, who had created the Portkey for them, but Ron didn’t want to take any chances and decided to let the river’s current wash away the risk.

“Where are we?” Draco asked from behind him, but Ron didn’t answer at first. Instead, he began walking a wide circle around the short meadow that they had landed in. It was surrounded by a thick ring of trees, but with all the foliage gone with it being almost December, they gave the impression of a chaotic web of bare branches crisscrossing each other. Ron scanned up the river and confirmed that they were far enough from the Loch that their campsite would hopefully not be noticed from the handful of holiday cabins that were arranged around the Loch, on the off-chance that anybody had decided to brave the frigid temperatures.

“Weasley, I asked you a question,” Draco said, sounding annoyed and much closer. He’d obviously recovered from the nauseating Portkey journey and had made his way through the thick snow over to where Ron was now standing.

“This is the River Earn.” Ron pointed, rather obviously, to the river in front of them. “It starts in Loch Earn,” Ron swung his hand to point upstream, “about two kilometres in that direction. There are some cabins on the Loch, but there’s not too much traffic along the river here, so we’re going to set up camp here.”

Draco didn’t say anything right away, spinning to take in the small clearing around them. “You can’t be serious?” he asked incredulously.

“Dead serious,” Ron said before turning back around and walking into the middle of the clearing. Lifting the duffel off his back, he kicked away a patch of snow large enough for the bag before dropping it on the ground. Unzipping it, he dug around in the magically expanded space until he found the shovel that he was looking for. Taking it out, he said, “There’s another shovel in here if you want to make yourself useful,” before getting to work clearing the snow away from a stretch of ground large enough to fit the tent.

“Have you forgotten we’re wizards, Weasley?” Draco drolled, pulling out his wand. Ron stopped what he was doing and put a restraining hand on Draco’s wrist.

“We think the Army may be able to track magical signatures. We can’t use our magic at all while we’re here.”

Draco looked defiant for a second, like he was going to do it anyway, offended that the Army was robbing him of being able to use his magic, but he eventually put his wand away. And to Ron's surprise, Draco actually did help, grabbing the spare shovel and sending shovelfuls of the white fluffy snow flying through the air with repeated swings of his arms until, in no time at all, they had a large patch of ground cleared of snow.

Ron dropped down to his knees on the cold, hard ground and pulled the tent out of the duffel while Draco leaned on the shovel, gasping puffs of air turning visible in the cold temperature. Ron studied the various pieces of material and metal spikes and cords for a few minutes, trying to refresh his memory of how to construct the tent. He’d never actually done this by hand before. Even when his dad had gone on that Muggle camping kick and had dragged them all off to the countryside to camp “the Muggle way”, he’d still allowed for a little magical help while setting up the campsite. And, of course, the tent itself was magically expanded. His dad’s obsession with all things Muggle was not entirely without bounds and he was never willing to give up certain magical luxuries.

“Are we going to be sleeping under the stars then?” Draco huffed behind him and Ron threw him an annoyed look over his shoulder.

“I’m just trying to remember how to set up the tent.”

Draco shoved the spade of the shovel into a snowdrift so that the wooden handle stood straight up into the air and then walked up behind Ron, who’d returned to puzzling out the tent problem.

“Merlin, was that thing even made in this century?” Draco asked, eyeing the ancient tent sceptically.

“If this tent isn’t fancy enough for you, your majesty, you can sleep outside,” Ron shot back, a familiar flare of resentment rekindling at the perceived judgment.

His family had fielded countless offers for book deals and public appearances and sponsorships after the war, but they had never wanted to profit off of the hand they’d offered in defeating Voldemort and had turned every single one of them down. It had always felt like they would be profiting off of Fred’s death if they had accepted any of the offers. The Weasley name was its own form of currency now, but it was not something you could deposit in Gringotts and they still lived quite modestly.

“What do the instructions say?” Draco asked, ignoring Ron’s outburst, and Ron looked up at him in puzzlement.

“What do you mean? It didn’t come with instructions,” he said.

“Are you sure? Most tents do.” Draco grabbed the rough sack that Ron had pulled the tent pieces out of and looked inside it before sticking his arm in, disappearing up to the shoulder in the deep bag. Ron stared on in surprise as Draco’s mittened hand emerged with a crumpled up paper, which he unfolded to reveal step-by-step construction instructions.

“How did you know there would be instructions?” he asked suspiciously. He didn’t take Draco for the camping type and even though he must have used this tent hundreds of times, he had never even noticed that paper before, let alone known to look for it. Of course, he’d always used magic to set up the tent before.

Draco rolled his eyes. “Everything comes with instructions. Haven’t you ever read the tube of toothpaste? Even that comes with instructions.”

“Really?” Ron had never paid much attention to his toothpaste before—why would he?

“Maybe we can talk about this once we have the tent up and my balls are no longer trying to retreat back into my body?” Draco suggested.

“Right, yeah. Sorry,” Ron said, flustered by the sudden talk of Draco’s balls.

They worked together to spread the tent out and secure the four corners with metal spikes. Ron hadn’t thought to bring a hammer with them, but he dug through the picnic basket that his mum had packed for them and was relieved to discover that, along with the food that would probably last them for at least a month, she had also seen fit to send along a few basic cooking implements, including a cast-iron skillet which worked as a hammer in a pinch, allowing them to bury the spikes into the frozen winter ground until they were secure.

The tent rose up as they got the poles into place and secured with additional spikes and long lengths of ropes, and then—finally—they were done. Ron wanted nothing more than to retreat inside to the fractionally warmer tent, but he looked at the sun which was moving steadily lower in the sky and figured that it would be best to get a firepit set up now.

Traipsing back and forth from the riverbank, Ron gathered enough stones to encircle a small hole that he dug in the ground, then dug through the duffel until he found the wood axe he’d packed. When he returned a while later, arms weighed down with a stack of firewood and kindling, he stacked them into neat piles just inside of the flap of canvas that blocked the tent entrance from the wind. It was dark now, and he was too cold and sore from all the manual labour to try to get a fire going, but at least they would have everything ready for tomorrow.

Pulling aside the tent flap as little as possible, Ron stepped into the tent and stopped in surprise. The tent was still cold but was much warmer than he had been expecting, and he yanked off his woollen cap and mittens. Tying up the flaps of the tent to try and keep the heat in, he wandered over to the sitting area to find a roaring fire in the potbelly stove.

“I told you that we can’t use any magic,” he accused, turning towards the small kitchen area that had a few cupboards, a small sink, and a metal cabinet with a cooling charm placed on it. The picnic basket was resting atop the narrow cupboard and Draco was unpacking it.

“And I heard you,” he said, removing a few jars of handmade preserves and arranging them in the cupboard, then moving them almost immediately, apparently unsatisfied with his original placement. “There was some kindling and firewood already in here, so rather than stand around and continue to slowly freeze to death, I started a fire to start getting this place warmed up.”

“How did you start the fire then?” Ron asked suspiciously. Malfoy held up a small box which rattled when he shook it a few times.

“Matches, Weasley.”

“Oh… well, thanks,” Ron said and Draco merely shrugged in response. It was still too cold to remove his coat, so he made his way over to the kitchen area to see how Draco was coming along.

“If we can’t use magic, then how can we use this?” Draco gestured around them to the inside of the tent, which was far more expansive than it had any right to be by Muggle standards.

“We think this should be fine. All of this magic was cast by someone else, so they would have no reason to try to track it. As long as you and I avoid using our own magic, we should be safe.”

“Hmmm. There’s more  _ think _ s and  _ should _ s in there than I would like,” Draco said as he pulled out a plate covered in tinfoil. He peeled the tinfoil back and Ron saw that it was an assortment of sliced roast turkey. “Your mum packed us a feast deserving of a king, but with little consideration towards refrigeration. We’ll have to store most of this outside because it won’t fit in the cabinet.”

“Just leave whatever needs to go outside in the basket and I’ll hang it from one of the trees,” Ron instructed. When Draco gave him a confused look, Ron explained, “So the animals can’t get into it.”

Draco looked unimpressed at that information. “I will never understand why Muggles like to do this for fun. Why would you leave the comfort and warmth of your flat to sleep on the ground outside?” he lamented, continuing his inspection of the food.

“If it makes you feel any better, this tent at least has beds,” Ron offered. When Draco looked mildly appeased, Ron amended, “Bunk beds.”

“Oh good, because grown men sleeping in bunk beds makes this  _ better _ ,” Draco muttered dolefully.

Ron wandered away, working on setting the tent to rights while Draco finished unpacking all of their food. Once he was done, Ron donned the outerwear that he had shed as the tent had progressively warmed up and went out to secure the basket out of the reach of any hungry land-bound animals. When he came back in, Draco was sitting on the couch, his feet kicked up beside him as he read a book.

Ron stood there uncomfortably for a moment before Draco spoke, “There’s a small collection of novels in that cedar chest over there.” He pointed in the direction of the sleeping area where a lit camping torch was sitting on top of a pale, wood chest.

“Thanks,” Ron mumbled and made his way over, kneeling down and carefully lifting off the lamp, holding it aloft so he could see inside the chest. There was, indeed, a small assortment of books inside, mostly old Muggle ones whose binding looked like it might fall apart if a good sneeze happened to be aimed in their direction. There was also a few ratty old copies of  _ The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle _ comic that Ron had adored as a child, but he didn’t want to hear the roasting that Draco would give him if he took out one of those, so instead he settled for a tattered copy of a novel called  _ Moby-Dick; or The Whale _ and sat down on the far side of the couch, Draco helpfully retracting his legs to make room for Ron.

They sat in silence, ostensibly reading, for quite some time. Ron kept trying to invest himself in the story of Ishmael and his great quest, but he found his mind drifting over to the blond man on the opposite end of the couch, his gaze not far behind.

“There are other books, if that one isn’t interesting for you,” Draco said, not looking up from his own book.

Ron guiltily looked away and closed the book in defeat, tucking it down between the cushion and the armrest. “Are you hungry?”

Draco did a flip of his wrist and his book snapped shut, one of his long fingers tucked between the pages and marking his place. “How can you be hungry after that enormous breakfast your mother made for us? I feel like I won’t be needing to eat again for at least a week.”

Ron shrugged; he’d always had a very active metabolism. “So nothing for you then?”

“No, thank you,” Draco said politely before letting the cover of his book drop open again and retaking his place.

Ron padded over to the kitchen area and perused the offerings. His mother really had loaded them up with a truly impressive amount of food, and this wasn’t even considering the basket of food that was being kept cool outside. Ron had a moment of regret that he hadn’t got the fire going earlier so he could make himself a cup of tea, but the thought of going back out in the cold was even more unappealing, so he decided to do without.

He settled on something that wouldn’t require heating and fixed himself a bowl of sponge cake with peach preserves drizzled over the top and made his way back to the sitting area. This time, it was Draco’s turn for furtive glances and Ron huffed out a laugh. “I thought you said you weren’t hungry.”

“I’m not,” Draco stubbornly insisted, returning his attention to his book with a bit too much intention for it to come off as natural.

“Alright, suit yourself.” Ron spooned another mouthful of the sweet treat into his mouth, pretending he didn’t see Draco’s darting looks.

“I’m tired. I’m going to turn in,” Draco announced, the book slapping shut with a loud clap as he swung his legs off the couch and stood up. Draco stood there uncertainly for a few moments and then asked, “Could you… go into the kitchen maybe?”

Ron was confused until he saw Draco’s eyes dart over to the small lavatory area that was just off of the sitting room, separated only by a heavy flap of canvas material. When they’d used this tent for their year-long Horcrux hunt, the first few weeks had been rather awkward whenever one of them had needed to use the loo. The other two would politely step outside at first, but eventually, they had all just gotten used to the situation and they had stopped evacuating the tent whenever anyone had to evacuate their bowels, and would simply turn up the wireless and tacitly agree to never discuss it.

Ron quickly shoved the last spoonful of sponge cake into his mouth and stood up, gesturing towards the kitchen. “I’ll just go wash my bowl.”

Ron found the wireless tucked inside a large soup pan on one of the shelves in the kitchen and he turned it on, whistling along to the Celestina Warbeck song—she was never one of his favourites, but his mum played her music so much that he swore he knew all of her songs by heart anyway—as he took an exorbitant amount of time washing the single bowl and piece of cutlery.

He whirled around when Draco cleared his throat behind him. “I don’t suppose you have a pair of pyjamas I could borrow?”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Ron agreed, setting the bowl upside down on the wire rack to let it air dry. “I packed up some of Percy’s old things for you. You and he are about the same size.”

Ron dried his hands on his denims and crossed over to the corner of the tent with the bunk beds in it. Digging through the duffel bag, he pulled out a smaller carryall that he’d shoved in there earlier with pretty much the entire contents of Percy’s closet in it. “There’s a few pairs of pyjamas in here.”

“Thank you.” Draco accepted the bag stiffly. “Top or bottom?”

“What?” Ron spluttered, mind immediately emptying at Draco’s casual question.

Draco studied him for a moment before a look of amusement flickered across his face. “Do you want the top bunk or the bottom bunk?”

Ron flushed with embarrassment, chastising himself. “Oh, umm… whatever. I’m not bothered either way.”

“Well, I’ll take the top then. That way, if these bunk beds fall apart, like I fear they might, I’m not the one being squished,” Draco said.

Ron rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Malfoy.”

They stood there staring at each other for a few moments until Draco spoke, “Are you waiting for a strip show? I’d like to get changed now but I would prefer to have a little privacy.”

“Oh, right, yeah,” Ron mumbled, spinning away and beelining for the tiny lavatory and letting the thick canvas block his view of the room.

Hands gripped on the rim of the small sink, Ron leaned on it, his head drooped. He was exhausted and it felt like a million years ago that his life resembled anything close to normal. When they had devised this plan in Robards’s office that morning, Ron had agreed to it because he felt that Malfoy was his responsibility. He refused to see another one of his charges murdered in cold blood by the Army. But he hadn’t really been considering the actualities of what this plan would entail: he and Draco... together... alone… He didn’t even know how long this was going to last, so he couldn’t start a countdown in his head.

And now that they were here and the immediacy of their flight from danger had passed, he was starting to realise that this was dangerous in ways he hadn’t even considered before. When Draco had so casually asked whether Ron wanted the top or bottom, it had felt like every cell in Ron’s body had spontaneously combusted, his mind providing countless not-at-all-helpful suggestions of how they could fill the many hours that stretched out in front of them.

Ron finally admitted to himself that his growing curiosity about being with a man had now burgeoned into definite interest. And he was fine with that, really. He’d been coming to terms with the fact that men held just as much allure for him as women did, and he was growing more comfortable with that fact about himself. What he wasn’t so comfortable with was that his interest seemed to have zeroed in on one man in particular.

“I must be going barmy,” Ron muttered to himself. Draco Malfoy was the last man on Earth that Ron should be fantasising about for so many reasons, the least of which being he was under Ron’s protection and that would be incredibly inappropriate. 

“Coast’s clear. You can come out now,” Draco called from the other side of the tent flap and Ron’s grip tightened around the rim of the sink. At least he didn’t have the visual of a half-naked Draco Malfoy to taunt him with what he couldn’t have.

Ron took a deep breath and a moment to compose himself before slipping out into the main tent area. Draco was already lying in the top bunk, tucked into one of the sleeping bags that Ron had packed, his back turned towards the rest of the tent.

Ron briefly considered trying to read  _ Moby-Dick _ again when he took a look at his watch and found that it was only eight o’clock, but he quickly rejected the idea when a wide yawn escaped him. He opened the door and stuck a couple more logs into the chamber of the potbelly stove, hoping that it would at least help keep the tent warm enough until morning that they wouldn’t freeze their bollocks off. Then he rooted around in his duffel and found his own pyjamas. After casting a look up at Draco’s back, he quickly changed into them right there and slipped into the sleeping bag, zipping it up to trap as much heat as possible.

Ron lay there, listening to the whistling of the wind just on the other side of the tent, grateful that the insulation charms on the tent seemed to still be functioning. He strained his ears, trying to pick up the rhythmic breathing that would give him some indication that Draco was asleep, but he couldn’t hear anything. He wondered if Draco was still awake, but he couldn’t think of anything to say, the realisation of his attraction to the man still too fresh and making him feel awkward and self-conscious.

He wasn’t sure how long he lay awake, listening for any sounds from the bunk above him, unsure of whether he wished for signs he was awake or hoped he was asleep, but eventually, Ron drifted off into dreams of pale grey eyes behind a curtain of swirling snow.


	17. Draco

Draco turned onto his back and shoved the pillow over his face. He wasn’t sure what time it was because the lamp was turned low enough that all he could make out was the shady outline of the scant furniture, but it had to be sometime before dawn. A particularly loud snort came from the bed below him and Draco groaned into the soft feather pillow.

Draco would have wagered that he only managed to get a couple of hours of sleep last night, at the most—short bouts of sleep stolen between Ron’s sawing snores.

_ I should put this pillow over his face instead _ , Draco thought to himself and it must have been the lack of sleep, because he found the idea tickled him and he giggled madly into the pillow. Two days ago he was going about his life and now he was sleeping in a bunk bed with Ronald Weasley. Life was mad sometimes. Maybe it was the sound of Dhis stifled laughter or the fact that it rocked the rickety bunk bed they were sharing, but he heard shuffling below him and the snoring died down again.

Draco considered trying to go back to sleep, but it was no use. The delirious case of the giggles had left him feeling wide awake and about as refreshed as he could hope, and besides, Weasley would only be starting up again in a few minutes anyway.

A fresh round of giggles bubbled out of him when his prophecy had proven right and the heavy mouth breathing that Draco now knew preceded full-on snoring started up again.

If he was going to be awake at such an ungodly hour, he may as well put it to good use. Unzipping the blue sleeping bag, he shivered as the chilled morning air rushed in, replacing the warm cocoon of body heat he’d built up overnight. He slipped out of the bag and crawled on his knees until he was lined up with the short metal ladder that allowed access to the top bunk. Ron murmured something incomprehensible as Draco swung his body over the edge and down the three steps until his feet were on the rough wood of the floor. He stood immobile for a few seconds, wondering if Ron was going to wake up, but he settled once more.

Draco studied the man for a few moments, feeling safe that he wouldn’t be caught with Ron dead to the world as he was now. Even with his knees bent at an angle, he stretched the entire length of the bed, so tall that his feet would push the wall of the tent out if he tried to lay flat. Despite his height, which had the potential to be imposing, he looked peaceful and almost sweet, his hands curled up and tucked under his chin in a childlike pose.

He looked cold, the tip of his nose slightly red, and Draco fought the urge to spread his own sleeping bag over the other man. He wasn’t sure where the protective impulse came from, but he didn’t give into it. He did, however, tiptoe over to the potbelly stove, which was still warm to the touch but not nearly hot enough to warm their tent anymore. Sighing at what he needed to do, Draco braced himself and then untied the flaps of the tent. He darted outside and grabbed four thick logs of wood and a handful of small branches for kindling that Ron had gathered yesterday and then retreated back inside. After the bracing bite of the fresh air outside, the tent felt practically tropical, but he knew that wouldn’t last long.

After Draco had managed to get the fire going again, he tended it for a few minutes until he was sure it wouldn’t go out and then closed the door so that embers wouldn’t fly out onto the wooden floor of the tent. The last thing he needed was this tinderbox of a tent going up in flames; he wasn’t going to let a simple fire succeed where Fiendfyre had failed.

Draco cast a look over to the sleeping area. The sun was rising outside and enough light was now shining through the canvas material of the tent’s walls that he could make out the slopes of Ron’s profile where he was still asleep. Draco rotated his neck, which had a crick in it thanks to the thin mattress on the bed. Or perhaps it was still sore from his attack… Draco pushed that thought away, not wanting to remember the feel of that cold hand wrapped around his neck and stealing away his breath. The tent was equipped with a simple toilet and sinks, but Draco had not seen any sort of bathing amenities, and if he lingered on thoughts of that hand on him, he would want to scrub himself raw again.

Shaking out his hands and pacing back and forth, Draco tried to think of something to do to distract himself. He considered reading some more, but he thought that if he had to sit still, he might go mad. He settled on his go-to relaxation trick: yoga. He didn’t have his mat with him, but he would just have to make do. Pushing the plush chesterfield back slowly, freezing every time the shifting weight made a loud scratching noise on the wood to check whether he’d woken Ron, he made a space large enough in front of the stove, which now had a growing radius of heat surrounding it.

The yoga had worked its wonders and Draco was gracefully moving from pose to pose, enjoying the stretch in his muscles and the dearth of thoughts whirring around his head, when an amused voice came from behind him. “Ummm… what are you doing?”

Draco’s eyes slid open and he looked placidly at Ron, who was currently upside down from his vantage point, his head between his spread legs and his palms braced flat on the floor.

“Yoga,” he said simply before taking a deep breath in through his nose and looking back down at the floor, the skewed perspective of looking at Ron upside down making him feel off-balance.

“Yoga?” Ron asked stupidly.

“Yoga,” Draco confirmed.

“Is that a fancy name for trying to suck your own—” Ron cut himself off, coughing a little as he seemed to realise what he was about to say. Draco grinned to himself, invisible to Ron. Draco was an adult and he knew that he should ignore Ron’s crass suggestion, but he had never been able to fully rid himself of some of his more impish impulses.

“Being limber is very convenient. If you’re interested, I could teach you,” Draco offered playfully. Judging by the dry gasping sound that came from behind him, the innuendo was not lost on Ron. Stepping back, first with his left foot and then with his right, Draco lowered himself into the plank position and held it.

He anticipated some sort of snarky retort from the other man, but his offer was met with nothing but silence. He wanted to look over his shoulder and see if he could glean any clues from Ron’s expression as to what he was thinking, but he didn’t want to be that obvious. Instead, he continued his routine, settling lower into four-limbed staff pose and staring down at the floor a few inches away. Dropping his pelvis and extending his arms, his lower spine curved as he moved into upward-facing dog, gaze landing on the seam where the wall and ceiling of the tent met.

He held the pose for a few moments to the sound of silence and the curiosity grew inside of him, begging to be acknowledged. Shifting once more, Draco pushed his hips up, bending his body into downward-facing dog pose. A weird sound came from the other side of the couch and Draco slid his feet apart a bit, just enough to catch a small sliver of Ron’s face. The other man was watching Draco intently. His face had turned a red that was only a few shades paler than the maroon sweaters he always used to wear during the winter months, and his mouth was hanging slightly ajar.

Intrigued and wanting to test a growing theory, he shimmied his arse in the air a bit, pretending at needing to readjust his footing to get a better grip at the floor. The other man let out a gasping choking sound and then spun around quickly, planting his hands on his hips and staring intently into the kitchen space.

“Eggs and sausage for breakfast?” Ron asked, voice strangely squeaky as Draco transitioned into the next pose.

“Sounds delicious,” Draco agreed, raising his hands above his head, palms facing inward and bending back slightly, eyes on the ceiling of the tent.

“Okay, umm…” Ron paced back and forth, seeming at a loss for the next step.

“The eggs and sausage are outside,” Draco offered helpfully, an amused smile threatening to break free.

“Right. Right. I’ll just…” Ron trailed off and shook his head. Draco could hear him muttering under his breath, but he couldn’t make out the words at all. Draco settled on the floor in corpse pose, eyes closed as he listened to Ron move around the tent, pulling on his outerwear. Draco opened his eyes a thin slit and stole a peek of the man who was obviously flustered, but closed them quickly again when Ron looked over at him from where he stood by the entrance to the tent. “Will you be alright by yourself?”

Draco scoffed. “If a killer squirrel should make its way in here, I’ll be sure to call for you.”

“Don’t be a git, Malfoy,” Ron said, but the words were tempered with a sly grin. A fresh blast of cold air blew into the tent and Draco’s nipples puckered as it brushed over his bare skin. He’d quickly gotten rather warm practising his poses in front of the fire and had shed the pyjama top on the floor while he’d continued his routine, but he picked it up now and slipped it on, buttoning up the front and leaving two buttons loose at the top.

He checked on the fire and rearranged the logs to reinvigorate the flames before padding over to the kitchen area and grabbing two cast-iron frying pans from the shelf just as Ron re-emerged from the cold carrying a package of sausages and two eggs apiece.

“I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind getting the fire going and I’ll get the food ready to go?” Ron proposed.

“Alright,” Draco agreed easily before heading over to the bag of clothing Ron had brought for him and digging through until he found a pair of denims that should help protect against the wind and one of the patented Weasley knitted jumpers.

He had just pulled the thick wool jumper over his head when, over the sound of cracking eggshells, Ron asked, “How did you learn how to light a fire without magic, anyway?”

Draco slipped the soft cotton pyjama bottoms down and kicked them off before slipping into the denims. “Every summer, we run a week-long camping trip for the children. Everything is done the Muggle way, so I’ve developed a dab hand at getting a roaring fire going over the years.”

“That’s… pretty cool,” Ron said and Draco smiled shyly to himself at the compliment, even if it was a tad begrudging. Draco donned a beanie and pulled it down over his ears, foregoing the gloves since he would need his hands bare to get the fire going anyway. He veered over to the potbelly stove and grabbed the package of matches before telling Ron that he’d call him once the fire was going.

He had a bit of trouble getting the fire going, having to use his body as a wind block to light the bark that he was using as tinder. It would have been so much easier if he could have just levitated one of the logs that was already burning inside out here, but he left his wand out of it and eventually he managed to get a steady fire going before calling out to Ron.

Ron emerged shakily from the tent, balancing one of the heavy frying pans in each of his hands and a long metal grate tucked precariously under one arm. Draco rushed over to help him and took the grate.

“Thanks,” Ron said gratefully as Draco set the grate up over the fire until it was centred over the flames. “There should be a couple of folding chairs in there tucked in behind the shelving units if you want to go grab them?”

Draco nodded and left Ron to arrange the pans as he ducked back into the tent and went to grab the chairs, which he found just where Ron had said they would be. They were stuck in there though and it took Draco a minute or so to yank them free, eyeing the shelving unit nervously as it teetered precariously before settling back into place. He began back towards the tent entrance and then spotted the jar of miscellaneous cooking utensils sitting on the counter, so he stopped and put the handle of a spatula between his teeth before picking up the chairs once more and heading outside.

Ron turned when he heard the tent flap open and chuckled when Draco’s head emerged, the end of the spatula catching on the seam of the flap and almost getting knocked out of his teeth.

“Here, let me take that,” Ron offered, reaching up to wrap his hand around the spatula’s handle. Draco released his biting hold on it and went about setting up the two chairs close enough to the fire that they would hopefully be able to counteract the worst of the chill.

“Did you learn to cook from your mum?” Draco asked, watching Ron with curiosity as he shuffled the sausages around in the pan. They were releasing a spicy smell and looked like they had been sprinkled with some sort of seasoning that Draco couldn’t identify.

“Yeah, she’s a great cook,” Ron said, a fond smile blooming on his face as he thought about his mother. He chuckled and then added, “Hermione wasn’t much of a cook and we lived off of takeaway for a few months before my mum finally got tired of me complaining about it and told me to stop being such a lazy sod and to do the cooking myself.”

“That’s one Muggle skill I’ve never been able to master,” Draco said regretfully. He’d tried, but he’d even managed to burn water once when he’d put a pot of water on to boil some pasta and had forgotten about it. Ron laughed when Draco told him the story of how he’d come back from a meeting to find his flat full of smoke, a charred black pot on the stove, and two strapping firefighters. “After that, my stove has been entirely for show.”

“Scrambled okay?” Ron asked, grinning at him. When Draco nodded, Ron leaned forward and used the spatula to shuffle the eggs around in the pan, the clear albumin starting to turn cloudy. Once they were scrambled, Ron sat back and regarded Draco for a moment. When he seemed to come to a decision, he asked, “How did you learn all that stuff?”

“You’ll have to be more specific.” Draco reached his hands out, holding them palms towards the fire and enjoying the warmth seeping into them and chasing away the chill.

“All the Muggle stuff. Don’t take this the wrong way, Malfoy—”

“Draco,” he interrupted him. “Can you please call me by my name? Every time you call me ‘Malfoy’ it reminds me of how much we couldn’t stand each other in school. It would be easier for me to be a mature adult and not revert to being the obnoxious git that I was back then without the constant reminders.”

Ron gave him an amused look and said, “So you admit that you were a pain in the arse, then?”

“I believe I said ‘obnoxious git’, but ‘pain in the arse’ would fit too, I suppose,” Draco conceded, but he couldn’t stop himself from adding, “But you three weren’t wholly innocent either.”

Ron looked about to argue but then he stopped and seemed to be thinking about it. “We definitely didn’t go out of our way to try to be nice to you, even if you did kind of start it when you were an elitist snob on the train.”

“Even if I was an ‘elitist snob’, I don’t think that warrants Hermione slapping me and Harry almost murdering me,” Draco accused and Ron’s lips flattened in a purse as if he wanted to argue. Draco smiled, trying to lighten the mood. He had forgiven all of that stuff years ago, really. “At least the worst that you did to me was to give yourself a case of slug vomit.”

“Merlin, don’t remind me,” Ron said, looking a little queasy suddenly and eyeing the gelatinous eggs warily. He didn’t look at Draco as he scrambled the eggs again. Draco didn’t say anything and just let the silence stretch between them. “I’m sorry about that, you know,” Ron eventually said in a soft voice. “All of that.”

Draco stared into the fire, focusing on the hypnotic flicker of the flames as he spoke, “It’s alright. All of that was so long ago, and I’m not that person anymore. It’s like it all happened to someone else.”

“You know, when Hermione got that owl from you with an apology, it really meant a lot to her.”

“I probably should have apologised in person, but I… I wasn’t quite at that point yet. The letters were something that the rehabilitation counsellor said I had to do.” Draco paused, remembering that time immediately following the war when rage had consumed him and he had considered himself the victim. “They actually kind of helped. Having to write them and examine my actions from your perspective… I didn’t like how I had behaved.”

“Well, that’s good I guess,” Ron said.

“What about you?” Draco asked. When Ron looked questioningly at him, he continued, “What did you think of the apology? It took a few weeks, but Hermione eventually wrote me back with a curt acceptance of the apology, but I never heard back from you.”

“Yeah… I didn’t even read it.” Ron looked sheepish as he answered and Draco tried to reassure him that he didn’t take it personally.

“Tossed it in the fire?” he asked playfully.

Ron chuckled and shook his head. “ _ Bombarda _ .”

“So dramatic.”

Ron shrugged. “Yeah, well, I was still pretty angry back then. I wasn’t interested in anything you had to say then.”

Draco looked up at Ron and smiled weakly. “I can understand that. I probably would have done the same if I were in your position.”

“I’m not angry anymore,” Ron said.

Draco could take a hint. Shifting to face Ron, he made eye contact with the other man to communicate how genuine his next words were. “I will probably never be able to express how sorry I am for how I behaved back then and the many mistakes I made, but I hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me.”

Ron studied him, eyes scanning Draco’s face, perhaps looking for signs of deceit, but he seemed satisfied with what he read there. “Yeah, alright. You’re forgiven. We were all pretty daft back then. So I’m sorry too.”

“Yes, you’ve already said that,” Draco teased.

“You apologised twice—even if I didn’t read your first one. Now we’re even.”

Draco snorted. “I didn’t realise we were in an apology competition. And besides, you lot saved my life in the Room of Requirement, and then again when you defeated Voldemort. By my calculations, that puts me firmly in your debt.”

“Now who’s competing?” Ron accused lightly before turning sober. “Harry insists we call him Tom Riddle,” Ron said, his voice dropping as if he still wasn’t quite comfortable with saying the name aloud. “Says that allowing him to keep the name ‘Voldemort’ is keeping his legacy alive.”

Draco thought about that for a moment and then nodded. He thought Harry Potter might have a point there. Names are meaningful. They have power. That was why Tom Riddle had changed his name in the first place. Draco had grown up hearing Lord Voldemort mentioned in reverent whispers and he’d never considered thinking of him as anything else since he’d fallen. “I like that. Names are powerful.”

“Yeah, I guess they can be.” Shaking his head, Ron’s tone shifted to something lighter. Emphasising Draco’s name, he asked, “Well then,  _ Draco _ , how did you learn all of this Muggle stuff? Riding the Tube, yoga, starting fires… all of it?”

Draco gratefully seized on the change of subject. Rehashing their troubled past seemed like something that was better suited to late nights and hushed tones, not with the sun shining and reflecting off the snow causing twinkling sparkles of light across the snow-covered ground. It was too beautiful and bright right now for such dark and heavy topics.

“It wasn’t easy at first, but when I expressed an interest in educating myself about Muggles, my rehabilitation counsellor taught me some of the basics and patiently answered all my questions.”

For the next hour, Draco regaled Ron with stories about that first couple of years after the war as they ate breakfast together, the rare winter sunshine, the fire in front of them, and the food in their bellies keeping them warm.

  
  
  


They’d been camping for almost a week now and Draco still hadn’t become accustomed to Ron’s snoring. He seemed to snort in so much air that Draco thought it was a miracle that he hadn’t managed to suck up all the breathable air in the tent. They had built up somewhat of a rapport over the past few days; there was not much to do out here, so they had filled a good deal of the hours getting to know one another better. Draco found himself increasingly thinking of Ronald Weasley as someone that he might like to call a friend, but as soon as they turned in for the night and that infernal snoring started, his warm sentiments melted away and he found himself half-heartedly contemplating bodily harm.

Just then, Ron let out a particularly loud snore which seemed to wake him up, because the bunk bed shook with a sudden movement. The dull thud and the subsequent expletive as Ron banged his head against the wooden planks holding Draco’s thin mattress aloft had Draco struggling not to laugh.

“I hear you laughing up there,” Ron accused grumpily. “That really hurt, you know!”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“What are you doing up?” Ron asked. The bed shifted again and Draco guessed that Ron was settling back down.

“Have you heard your snoring?” Draco asked incredulously. “It’s like trying to sleep above a mountain troll with sinus congestion.”

“Yeah, Hermione always complained about it too. She spent months researching charms and potions that might help and even tried to develop some of her own, but nothing ever stuck.”

“But you guys were together for years, so she must have found something that helped?” Draco asked hopefully. He wasn’t sure how long they would have to be here, but he was ready to try anything if it would get him a full restful night.

“She eventually gave up hope of putting an end to my snoring and just settled for blocking it out instead. She always wore a pair of earplugs charmed with a  _ Muffliato _ to bed. She said that if there was ever a fire in the middle of the night, she’d probably perish in it, but at least she’d die well-rested.”

Draco sighed; he didn’t have a pair of earplugs to hand and a Muffliato charm was out of the question since they weren’t allowed to use magic right now.

“Sorry about the snoring, Draco.”

“Stop apologising. It’s not like you’re doing it on purpose.” They lay quietly in their stacked bed for a long stretch and Draco thought it might have been the dread of Ron slipping off to sleep again that made him ask the next question, though he had definitely found himself theorising about it over the past week and was growing increasingly curious. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened between the two of you? You were the darling couple of wizarding England. I was surprised when the Prophet reported that you two were splitting.”

Ron didn’t say anything and Draco thought that perhaps he’d overstepped. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me. It’s none of my business.”

“No… no, it’s fine. It’s just complicated.”

“What breakup isn’t complicated?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Ron agreed reluctantly. Draco waited patiently to see if Ron would explain and eventually he was rewarded. “It was my fault. I cheated on her, sort of.”

“Hmmm…”

“I can hear you judging me up there,” Ron said. He almost sounded like he wanted Draco to vilify and condemn him.

“First off, it is rarely the case that breakups can be blamed entirely on one person,” Draco began.

“Yeah, but I cheated on her. Kind of hard to blame her for that,” Ron said sullenly.

“And you’re saying that everything between the two of you was brilliant  _ before _ your dalliance?” Draco pressed. He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to make Ron feel better about it—infidelity was quite a betrayal—but he did.

“I guess not,” Ron said uncertainly. “I mean, we’d been together for five years. It’s normal for things to sort of… settle after that long.”

“Certainly, that is true. At least, I assume it is. My longest relationship barely lasted a few months.”

“Why’s that?” Ron asked.

“No reason, really. I’ve just never met anyone that seemed worth the hassle.”

“The ‘hassle’? Such a romantic,” Ron quipped.

“I’ll have you know that I can be very romantic when I choose to be. Anyway, we’re not talking about my tragic love life. Let’s get back on topic,” Draco said, grinning to himself.

Ron sighed below him. “I guess there were a few warning signs that I chose to ignore.” Ron paused for a beat and then he added, “She loved the opera and I just don’t get it. It’s so boring!”

Draco barely managed to suppress a laugh. “I must say, I agree. Though that hardly sounds like grounds for divorce.”

“Really?” Ron asked, surprised. “I would have thought for sure that you would be the type that would have season tickets.”

Draco did laugh now. “No, not at all. My parents did drag me along whenever there was an all-magical production put on, but I always hated it. They finally agreed to leave me at home after I got bored one time and fell asleep and had a bout of accidental magic.”

“What happened?” Ron asked.

“I accidentally transfigured one of the stage props into a sheep, which then ran around the stage trying to chew the lace trim on one of the singer’s gowns.”

“Bugger off, that didn’t really happen!” Ron accused.

“I swear to Merlin,” Draco said.

“Blimey, that must have been so funny to watch!” Ron said, laughing.

“I wouldn’t know. I was asleep through all of it. When my mother noticed that I was asleep, she jabbed me awake and as soon as I woke up, the magic stopped,” Draco lamented.

“That’s mad! What did she do? What did she say?”

“At the time? Nothing. But did I ever hear about it once we got home. She never told my father though. He would have been livid.” Draco sobered at the thought of his father, who had immediately assumed that the gag must have been perpetrated by some classless Mudblood. He had complained about it for weeks and had threatened to withdraw the Malfoy contributions to the Wizarding Arts Council unless they banned Muggle-borns from the events. Fortunately, it would have reflected badly on the Malfoy name if he had followed through with his threats, so the matter was just quietly dropped.

Ron was laughing below him, unaware of the dark shift that Draco’s memories had taken.

“You know what else? Hermione never wanted to go to Quidditch matches. Said they were interminable,” Ron said.

“And you stayed with her for five years?” Draco asked in mock-horror.

“Right? And she never cleaned the giant hair clogs out of the shower drain. Those things were so nasty! And there was always piles of books everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Our dining table was barely usable because it was always covered in open books and rolls of parchment—there was even a stack on the back of the toilet. And she didn’t really like giving blow jobs, she—” Ron cut off as he seemed to realise what he’d just admitted in his laundry list of complaints.

“I probably shouldn’t be telling you any of this,” he admitted. “It’s just… she’s still friends with Harry and Ginny and... well... all of our friends, really. And that’s good. I don’t want us to “divide” our friends or anything. It’s just that it means I haven’t really had anyone I can complain to about all of this, you know?”

“I understand. Don’t worry, I don’t have any intention of running off to rat you out to Granger,” Draco promised.

Sounding relieved, Ron said, “Thanks, Draco. And, you know, I don’t want to make it seem like Hermione was this monster to live with. She really wasn’t. She’s always been the most impressive woman I’ve ever known. We just… weren’t compatible, I guess, not in the long run.” Draco wished he could see Ron’s face right now to help him gauge what Ron was feeling. He sounded sad but resigned, and Draco wondered whether Ron was still pining after his ex-wife.

“You’re a more forgiving man than I am,” Draco said, trying to lighten the mood. He was enjoying this bonhomie between them and he was strangely flattered that Ron had chosen him to confide in. “I definitely enjoy blow jobs far too much to give them up.”

Ron chuckled and said, “Me too. She always said she didn’t like the taste, that it was too bitter, but I didn’t think it was that bad when I—” Ron cut himself off again and Draco’s senses went into high alert.

“When you… what?” Draco prompted. It had sounded like Ron was just about to admit that he had first-hand experience with being on the gifting end of a blow-job, and Draco waited on tenterhooks to see if Ron would elaborate.

Ron groaned and Draco thought he wasn’t going to put Draco out of his misery and clarify what he had meant, but then he said, “This stays in the tent, yeah?”

“I won’t tell a soul,” Draco promised.

“Hermione and I had, well... an arrangement, I guess you could call it.”

“Okay…” Draco drawled, hoping that Ron would elaborate on what exactly that meant.

“We weren’t strictly monogamous, not technically.” Draco felt like he was going to explode with the sheer number of questions that were demanding answers inside his brain, but he tried to remain calm and let Ron go at his own pace. “We had an arrangement with an old friend of ours. Whenever he was in town, he would come over to mine and Hermione’s flat and… you know.”

Draco didn’t know, but he wanted to know all of the specifics. He didn’t want to seem like a gossipmonger, though, so he held his tongue and let Ron take his time.

“It was mostly just... we would share Hermione, you know? He and Hermione would do stuff and I’d watch, then we’d trade places. Sometimes we’d all do stuff together.”

Draco couldn’t help imagining the various couplings as Ron spoke. He still had a million questions, but he doubted he would be able to form a simple sentence if he tried right now. When he’d caught Ron watching him doing yoga last week, he’d briefly wondered whether Ron wasn’t entirely straight, but he’d quickly rejected the idea. Now, it seemed as if his intuition had been right.

Draco realised that Ron hadn’t said anything for a few moments and was probably waiting for Draco to say something. “I see. Well, from what you’ve said, it doesn’t sound like you cheated. Hermione seems to have been very much on board with your arrangement.”

“Yeah, she was fine with all of that. But then one night she had to work late and Viktor came over and one thing led to another and—”

It took a few beats for recognition to flicker and Draco suddenly sprang to life, shifting around until his torso was hanging down from the lower bunk so he could see Ron’s face. He was sure that Ron must be messing with him. “Did you suck Viktor Krum’s cock?” he basically shouted, unable to modulate the volume of his voice with his surprise and excitement.

Ron covered his face with his hands and groaned and Draco knew with certainty that Ron was telling the truth. A part of him was jealous—rumour had it that Viktor had a real Beater’s bat in his trousers—but a faint flicker of hope shimmered to life inside him as well. Maybe all those weird looks that he’d seen Ron giving him—especially when he was doing his yoga routines—weren’t just wishful thinking after all.


	18. Ron

Ron tried to read his favourite issue of Martin Miggs—issue number four, in which Miggs was a detective and had to solve the caper of which Muggle staying at the town’s Inn was, in fact, a murderer. Maybe it was the fact that the story was so familiar to him, etched into his mind from the countless times he’d read it as a child, but he found his mind perpetually wandering as he stole covert glances at Draco, who was doing his yoga exercises once more.

They had been locked away together in the small, canvas tent for almost two weeks now and Ron felt like his sanity and self-control were slowly being shredded away to nothing. There wasn’t a lot to do out here, so they had spent a lot of time chatting and the more he learned about Draco, the more he found himself liking the other man.

Draco could have taken the easy path; he could have put on a repentant face and posed for the cameras and presented the repentant Death Eater facade while simultaneously fostering the same toxic attitudes as before behind closed doors. Ron wasn’t stupid; he knew that was what a lot of the pure-blood supremacists had done. Draco hadn’t done that though. He’d faced his own prejudices and had turned over a new leaf. He’d bravely plunged himself into the Muggle world and had educated himself on what they were really like, and when he’d realised his mistakes, he’d started his programme to try to help other children from making the same mistakes he had.

Ron didn’t just respect him; he admired him. And, apparently, fancied him.

Even though he knew that Draco was gay, and he even thought that Draco might be interested in him—at least, he seemed almost flirtatious at times but maybe that was just hopeful thinking on Ron’s part—he knew that nothing could happen between them while Draco was under his protection as part of this case. His focus needed to be on Draco’s safety, not on how fit he was or how that smirk of his made Ron’s cock twitch, or how he was apparently able to contort his body into a tantalising number of twisty positions that never failed to kidnap Ron’s thought processes and leave him hard and desperate and yearning.

“One of these days, you’re going to take me up on my offer to teach you a few beginner poses,” Draco said confidently, a quirk of a smile playing at his mouth as he bowed his upper body to the side, arms stretched above his head. His body was long and lean and he looked graceful, like a wispy tree bending with the wind.

Clearing his throat and guiltily averting his eyes back down to the far less interesting comic book, Ron said, “I doubt it, Draco.”

“We’ll see.” Draco sounded smug and Ron coloured with embarrassment as another onslaught of images flooded through him.

Draco finished his routine and settled onto the rough floorboards of the tent, arms and legs spread just slightly and body relaxed, his eyes closed and his mouth ever so slightly ajar. Ron liked this part of the yoga routines the best—well, maybe not  _ the best;  _ the parts where he bent over with his arse in the air were pretty brilliant—because it was the only time that he got to indulge in his desire to watch Draco without the fear of being caught out hanging over him. Draco always looked so peaceful and relaxed after his routine, all the tension released from his body, and Ron couldn’t help but wonder if this is what he looked like after sex.

Ron startled when Draco promptly sat up, leaning back on his forearms and regarding Ron seriously. “I want to go down to that little village today.”

“Nope,” Ron stated simply.

“That’s it? Just ‘nope’? We can’t even have a discussion about it?”

“We’re here to keep you protected. Wandering about an unknown village isn’t going to help us with that objective.”

“Am I under arrest?” Draco asked and Ron lowered his comic, looking at the other man in surprise.

“What? No, of course not!”

“So then I am not being detained in any way?”

“Well… no, but—” Ron started, seeing where Draco was heading with this and trying to head him off at the pass, but Draco cut across him.

“Brilliant. Well then, I am going to walk up to that quaint little village today and have a look around. If you would like to join me, then you are welcome to.”

“Draco, we have no idea who lives in that village. It could be dangerous,” Ron protested, but Draco was having none of it.

“So is staying locked up in here with nothing to do. It has been surprisingly endurable being here with you for this long, but I’m beginning to feel a bit like a hobbit locked away in a dark cave, and I don’t even have any jewellery to show for it.”

“What’s a hobbit? And what’s this about jewellery?” Ron asked, confused by the unfamiliar reference.

Draco waved him off and continued, “It doesn’t matter. I’m just saying that I’m used to my day being packed full of appointments and meetings and places to be. It’s a small miracle that I’ve managed to last almost two weeks with nothing to keep me occupied. I need to go  _ do something _ .”

Ron sighed and tried to talk some sense into the other man. “Couldn’t you just read a book or do more yoga or something?”

“If I do any more yoga, I really will be able to suck my own cock.” Draco smirked and Ron felt the flush all the way in the tips of his ears, which only made Draco look even more satisfied with himself.

“Great! Now that that is decided, I’m going to go get washed up, as best I can, and get dressed and then we can head out.” Draco pushed himself up and disappeared into the bathroom, and Ron heard the water running in the small sink.

“But what if someone comes across the tent?! They’re going to know that something is up if they take a look inside and see all of this,” Ron protested, gesturing around him to the lodgings which, though fairly simple, were definitely not possible in the limited space of a Muggle tent.

“Nice try!” Draco called back. “You already told me that the tent has Muggle-repelling charms woven into it, remember?”

_ Bollocks! Why did I tell him that? _ , Ron thought. He cast around desperately for some excuse, anything at all that he could use to convince Draco that his plan wasn’t worth the risk, but he came up with nothing.

By the time Draco emerged from the washroom area, Ron was already dressed and was trying to force a comb through his hair, wincing everytime it snagged on yet another knot.

“Oh good, you’ve decided to join me,” Draco beamed at him, as if there was any doubt that Ron would have let him wander off alone. His brows drew together as he watched Ron’s struggle with the comb. “You’re going to have a full head of split ends if you keep going like that.”

“I really need a—OUCH!—haircut,” Ron said, crying out as the teeth of the comb got caught yet again.

“I’d offer to give you one, but I wouldn’t want you to walk around looking like you stuck your head up the back-end of a Blast-Ended Skrewt. But I can at least help you get rid of those.” Ron stopped abruptly, leaving the comb dangling in his hair as he shot Draco a surprised look. Draco strode over to him and carefully extracted the comb before ushering Ron over to bend down under the kitchen sink. Before Ron knew what was happening, Draco’s fingers were kneading Ron’s scalp as he wet the strands.

Ten minutes later, Ron was sat on one of the folding chairs in the middle of the sitting area and he honestly couldn’t tell you how they’d gotten here. He sat quietly, totally flummoxed as to what to say, as Draco patiently and carefully combed out each of the tangles. Ron kept finding his eyes drifting shut, enjoying the feeling of Draco’s long fingers running through his hair. It was odd that he felt as content as a purring cat right now, but when his mum had cut his hair, he had felt awkward and couldn’t wait for it to end.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed, but too soon the soft touch disappeared. He heard Draco chuckle softly and dragged his eyes open. “Maybe we can get you a haircut while we’re in the village, though I do kind of like this long hair on you.”

Distracted by the unexpected compliment, it took a moment for the rest of Draco’s words to settle in and he frowned. “I really wish you’d reconsider this plan of yours.”

Draco placed his hands on Ron’s shoulders and, bending down so they were at eye level, he regarded him seriously. “I promise, it will be fine. We haven’t seen even a glimpse of anyone threatening, or otherwise, since we’ve been here. We haven’t used any magic, so there would be no reason on Earth for someone to think to come and look for me in a random tiny village in Scotland.”

Ron thought about that for a moment. It was true that they had not had any encounters with anyone else since they’d gotten here. They were far enough away from the village and the road that nobody had stumbled across them, especially given the cold weather that made staying indoors rather than traipsing around in the snow a far more appealing possibility. And the tent did have the Muggle-repelling charms, which had come in handy when they’d had to abandon it when they had been snagged by the Snatchers. After the war, Ron had gone back to find it sitting just where they’d left it. The repelling charm had not extended to other species, however, and it had taken Ron almost an hour to chase out the family of foxes that had taken up residence in it before he’d been able to take it down and return home.

“You’re probably right,” Ron finally agreed, suddenly aware of how close they were and that all he would have to do is lean forward a scant distance and their lips would meet. Leaning back , he cleared his throat and let Draco’s hands fall away from his body. “But, just to be safe, we’re taking our wands and you have to stay close to me, alright?”

Draco rolled his eyes but he gave Ron a teasingly warm look. “Yes, sir.”

“And if I see anything at all that seems out of place, we get out of there,” Ron continued listing all the stipulations he could think of off the top of his head..

“Alright, fine. If the village people come at us with pitchforks, we run for the hills,” Draco teased.

“I’m not joking around, Draco!” Ron insisted. “We’re taking a risk here and I need you to take this seriously.”

Draco sobered and said, “I’m sorry. I am. I promise to follow any and all instructions you give me. I’m grateful that you’re concerned for my safety.”

“Well, it is my job, after all,” Ron said. At his words, Draco’s face dropped and he stepped back, regarding Ron coolly.

“Very diligent of you, Auror Weasley. I’ll be sure to let Head Auror Robards know how dedicated you were to seeing through your responsibility.”

Ron wasn’t quite sure what had just happened, but the chill that he felt had nothing to do with the winter temperatures. Before he could ask Draco what was wrong, the other man turned and marched towards the tent entrance and disappeared through it. Ron hurriedly shut the door of the stove and chased after him, scrambling to pull on his winter gear.

He expected to find Draco had disappeared into the trees, but the other man was standing just outside the tent, back turned towards Ron. He didn’t say anything when Ron emerged from the tent and tied the flaps closed. Ron opened his mouth to say he knew not what, but Draco walked off, heading in the direction of the small town.

They walked in silence for about fifteen minutes before Ron couldn’t take it anymore. “You’re miffed. I don’t know what I said, but I’m sure it was something stupid, so will you just tell me what it was so that I can apologise for it?”

Draco stopped in his path and turned towards Ron, who came to a halt just behind him. Draco looked like he was about to tear a strip out of Ron for a second, but then the anger seemed to dissolve away and he sighed and gave Ron a weary look. “It’s not you. I’m just being daft,” he said, a weak smile curving his lips. “I just thought we’d become… I don’t know… friends? These last few weeks.”

Ron wasn’t sure where this had come from. They’d never actually specifically stated as such, but Ron thought back on all the late nights they’d spent learning about one another and all the laughs they’d shared and how Draco knew things now that Ron hadn’t even told Harry or anyone in his family about. Wasn’t it obvious that they were friends? “Well, yeah. Aren’t we?” he asked, suddenly uncertain.

“We are if you want to be,” Draco hedged.

“Well then, we’re friends,” Ron confirmed. “And since we’re friends, can I ask you something and expect you to be honest with me?” When Draco nodded, Ron continued, “What was that tosh about?”

Draco chuckled nervously and buried his hands into his pockets as he suddenly seemed highly interested in his feet. “You said it was your job and I just thought, maybe, that you were trying to remind me that this is just a job to you.”

“It is my job,” Ron said, bending down slightly to try to encourage Draco to look up at him before continuing, “but that doesn’t mean we’re not friends.”

Draco smiled shyly at him, which was so unlike his usual demeanour and Ron found the rare sight utterly charming. “I can’t believe I’m friends with the Weasel,” Draco teased.

Ron grinned back at him and shoved his chest playfully. “Shut it, Ferret-Face.”

They turned and resumed their trek towards the village, but the distance passed by much faster now that they were speaking to one another. In what felt like no time at all, they were entering the town. It was quaint and festive, all the houses and businesses decorated merrily for the upcoming holiday. It was small, so there wasn’t much to see, but they stopped in at the village store, which served double-duty as a cafe as well. The clerk eyed them suspiciously, as if wondering who these two mad blokes were that were strolling about the Scottish highlands in the dead of winter, but they ignored her and grabbed a couple of seats at a small table by the window that overlooked the loch.

After warming up, their bellies full of some much-needed tea, they stepped out into the cold once more and continued exploring the little village. Excitement took over Ron when he spotted a local brewery, and without thinking, he grabbed Draco’s mitted hand and dragged him down the street towards the rough stone-walled building.

His mum had packed most of the contents of the Burrow’s larder for their trip and they still had plenty of food left to eat, but what she had not packed was any sort of alcohol, and Ron had been hankering for a good pint or two for days. He stood back and let Draco work out their orders, being much more familiar with Muggle spirits than Ron was. He watched, impressed, as Draco conversed with the server about the various beers and ciders they served, asking questions about hoppiness and malt and mead that all sounded very knowledgeable to Ron but made not a lick of sense. Finally, Draco seemed satisfied with his selections and the waiter walked off to fill their order.

“Where did you learn all of that?” Ron asked.

“I dated a bloke for a few weeks that liked to brew his own beer in his flat,” Draco explained. “I learned a lot about beer brewing because he was really interested in it and he taught me a bunch.”

“Oh, so what happened between you two?” Ron asked casually, ignoring the jealousy nibbling away at him at the thought of Draco’s mystery ex.

Draco shrugged. “That was pretty much  _ all _ he was interested in, and he got rather boring. Plus, he reserved his bathtub for brewing in, so he was always coming around to mine basically looking for a place to shower.”

“He sounds like a bit of a tosser,” Ron offered, trying to not smile at the relief that he felt at Draco’s casual disregard for this unknown man. He was being daft, he knew—it’s not like he and Draco were a couple or anything—but he was relieved that it was Draco that had rejected the other man and not the other way around; he couldn’t see Draco seeking a reconciliation.

“Mmm, he was. Which is why I tossed him,” Draco said, giving Ron a mischievous look.

Draco regaled Ron with more tales of the various paramours he had dated over the years, and each one seemed to have some annoying habit or obnoxious trait that had eventually pushed Draco over the edge. Ron had only ever dated two women his entire life, not including the one unplanned blowjob he’d given, so he couldn’t contribute much and merely listened and studied Draco.

A few months ago, Ron would never have been able to imagine Draco with anything other than a sneer or a scornful look on his face, but now, as he told Ron about the time that he had agreed to go rock climbing on a first date with a gentlemen and had realised halfway up the cliff face that he may, in fact, have a slight fear of heights and had become paralysed, requiring rescue from emergency personnel, his face was anything but. Ron laughed along as Draco acted out his desperate clinging to the rock face and refusal to budge even one more inch in either direction. Draco’s grey eyes sparkled as he told the story and Ron found himself getting lost in them, charting out each dark fleck that helped lend them such depth and dimension, almost like they were the night sky in reverse.

“Are you even listening to me?” Draco asked, the tiniest crow’s feet forming at the corner of his eyes as they crinkled up in amusement as he regarded Ron.

“What? Yeah, of course I was listening!” Ron protested, realising that, in fact, he had not been listening as he had been trying to decide whether Draco’s eyes were better described as pewter, silver, or liquid mercury.

“So you have nothing to say about the fact that, once they managed to get me off that god-forsaken cliff, I expressed my gratitude by throwing a huge orgy for the entire rescue team?” Draco said, face neutral.

“What?!” Ron was unable to contain his surprise and a few of the other brewery patrons cast disparaging looks in their direction. Ron knew that he had let his mind wander, but he had no idea how he could have let it wander so far and wide that he’d missed that part of the story.

Draco shushed him and gave the strangers around them looks of apologies. “Calm down, I was only kidding. But that proves my point that you weren’t really paying attention.” They both took a drink from their third round of pints, Ron’s considerably longer than Draco’s as he clung to the hope that if he just put it off long enough, Draco would let this particular conversation drop. Eventually, Ron regretfully set his glass back down on the table and Draco asked, “You don’t really think I would service an entire rescue team, do you?”

Ron tried to read Draco’s face, but the open book was now closed tight and he couldn’t read the expression there. “Not really, but I wouldn’t judge you for it if you had.” When Draco gave him a disbelieving look, Ron corrected, “Well, I would try not to judge you. It would probably take some time to get used to the information, if I’m being honest.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Draco stated before taking another sip of his beer.

“I’m not some prude, Draco. I did have an ongoing threesome situation for a while, remember?” Ron felt somewhat offended that Draco would think that of him until he noticed the look of triumph on the other man’s face and he realised he’d stepped right into the cunning Slytherin’s trap.

“Since you’ve brought it up, care to share any details about how THAT came about?” Draco leaned forward and rested his chin on his hand as he regarded Ron with insatiable curiosity. Ever since Ron had let slip a week ago that his and Hermione’s relationship with Krum had been slightly more than friendly, Draco had been fishing for details. Ron thought that perhaps he should be suspicious of Draco’s motivations for wanting to know all of the salacious details, but he wasn’t actually. He didn’t think Draco was planning to run off to the Daily Prophet and sell Ron’s secrets out to Rita Skeeter, but a sense of gentlemanly chivalry led him to hold his tongue.

“Draco, I’ve told you. I don’t kiss and tell,” Ron said shyly, lowering his voice and casting a nervous glance around the room at the other patrons, but since his previous outburst, they all seemed to have turned their attention back to their own tables.

“Apparently you don’t suck and tell either,” Draco muttered under his breath while giving Ron a rueful look and Ron chuckled. He was willing to bet that wouldn’t be the last time he’d have to fend off Draco’s persistent questions.

Ron finished off the last of his pint and considered another round, but the alcohol was starting to kick in and he felt jovial and feared a fourth would give him loose lips, so he declined the waiter’s offer to bring him another and instead proposed that they continue to explore the village some more once Draco had finished.

The biting cold of the air was all the worse after their cosy spot beside the fire that they’d just vacated, and Ron wished that he could pull out his wand and cast a simple Warming Spell around them. They made do by bundling themselves up tight in their scarves and hats and made their way down to the edge of the water to walk around the loch for a bit. The banks here weren’t covered with a fine layer of ice like they were by their campsite, the loch’s volume too immense to freeze.

There was a worn, wooden jetty projecting out into the water and they made their way down it until they were standing at the edge. It was still just barely gone five, but the sun was already hanging low in the sky. Looking out across the water, the loch appeared to narrow into a thin strip, the land on either side descending down in a gentle slope towards the water, the sun slipping down between the two banks of the loch.

They stood close together, watching the setting sun of another day, and Ron knew that they were here for a very important reason, but for a moment he imagined that it wasn’t duty or fear that drove them here, but just the burning desire to witness such a marvellous sight. There was no one around them, everyone else were tucked away in the warmth inside, but a sight like this demanded witness.

“We should probably start heading back,” Ron said reluctantly. It was going to be dark soon and they didn’t need to be traipsing around the countryside when they couldn’t even rely on a  _ Lumos _ to guide their way.

Draco turned to look at Ron and then his eyes skipped past him over his shoulder, a grin lighting his face as he turned back to Ron. “As the designated fire starter, I refuse to muck around outside in the dark trying to get it started so we can eat. We’re going to have a nice, civilised meal in there,” he said, pointing at a sign for a hotel with a dining room attached.

“Draco,” Ron began, feeling like he should protest, but the idea held a certain appeal. They usually tried to eat early so they wouldn’t have to fuss around with getting the campfire lit in the dark, and they’d spent so much time out of doors today that the idea of sitting in a warm building and being served piping hot food did sound heavenly.

“Oh please, don’t pretend you don’t want this just as much as I do,” Draco said before turning around and walking determinedly up the small slope towards the hotel.


	19. Draco

It was late when they finally made their way back to the camp. A few glasses of wine over dinner, paired with the earlier pints, left Draco feeling pleasantly fuzzy-headed and slightly giddy. Some of the cotton muddling his thoughts seemed to clear on their trek back to the camp, but the distance was not long enough for the effects to expire entirely, and the jovial atmosphere continued as he got the fire in the stove started again and they huddled together under a shared blanket waiting for it to warm up the tent enough for them to brave changing into their pyjamas.

“I swear, Weasley, you’re the only person I know that’s ever given an  _ accidental _ blowjob,” Draco giggled uncontrollably, tickled pink by the mental image. “You may as well have said you slipped on a banana peel and landed face-first on a dick!”

Ron shot his arm out, landing an elbow to Draco’s ribs. “I already regret telling you that! You have to promise not to tell anyone else!” he pleaded but looked like he was fighting back laughter of his own.

“I told you: what’s said in the tent will stay in the tent,” Draco promised, before playfully adding, “but I never promised not to take the piss while we were in here.”

“That’s it, I’m sleeping outside,” Ron declared, making a move to stand up, but Draco pulled him back down again. “Are you going to stop laughing at me,  _ Malfoy _ ?” Ron asked, watching him with an amused expression as he tried to regain control of himself.

“I’m sorry,  _ Ron _ ,” he offered, emphasising the last name to acknowledge his earlier slip. If he wanted Ron to address him by his given name, he should offer the same in return. “I just… I wasn’t prepared for that particular turn of phrase.”

Ron rolled his eyes, but he settled back into the sofa, pulling the blanket back up to his neck. “I only meant that I didn’t plan it in advance or anything.”

Draco regarded the other man and then gently probed, “But it didn’t completely take you by surprise that it happened, I’m guessing? You’d thought about it before?”

Ron shrugged but wouldn’t look at him. “I guess. I mean… the thought had crossed my mind before while I watched him and Hermione. We’d never—Krum and I, I mean—done much together prior to that.” Ron cast a quick, nervous glance over at Draco before adding, “Sometimes hands, you know… drift when there’s three of you together.”

Draco resisted the urge to tease Ron about taking the opportunity to cop a feel because he looked so nervous about the whole thing. And it had taken Draco a week to convince Ron to open up to him, so he didn’t want to ruin that for the sake of a stupid joke. “I’m sure he knew that it was you touching him, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Draco consoled him.

The look of hopeful relief that took over Ron’s face suggested that he definitely had been concerned about that. “You think?”

Draco reached over and grabbed Ron’s hand where it was resting on his thigh and held it in both of his. The skin was surprisingly soft, but there’s no way anyone would confuse this hand with that of a woman. Draco pinched one finger between two of his own, running them down Ron’s long finger, tracing the slight bulge at each of the knuckles. Nothing more scandalous than their hands were touching, but it was weirdly intimate. Draco didn’t back away though, slipping Ron’s hand over his own palm once he’d reached the end and holding all four of those fingers within his own.

To his surprise, Ron didn’t pull his hand away, and Draco watched as his tongue darted out in a nervous gesture and licked his lips.

“These are very strong hands,” Draco said softly, letting the moment linger as his heart began to race.

The moment stretched out for a few more seconds, but then Ron cleared his throat and slowly retracted his hand from Draco’s grasp, placing it back on his denim-covered thigh and squeezing it, as if he wasn’t quite sure what the hand would do if left to its own devices. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” Ron managed to croak out eventually.

Before Draco could say something—not that he had a clue what to say—Ron rubbed both his hands against his thighs a couple of times and then tossed the blanket off him and over to Draco. “I think it’s warm enough in here that I can brave taking off my jumper.”

Draco sat stock-still on the couch and watched as Ron steadfastly refused to look at him, even as he had to hustle past him to retreat to the lavatory area, his toiletries bag tucked under one arm. The rapidity with which the evening had turned left Draco feeling like he’d just taken a running leap into the icy water flowing not more than ten meters from where their tent was set up. For days now, they had been subtly dancing around each other, playful banter stepping barely a toe over the line into flirting before shuffling away again. Draco had started to think that perhaps the interest that he was now able to admit had ballooned into full-fledged attraction might not be one-sided, but every time Draco pushed just a little, Ron pulled away.

Ron emerged and walked quickly past him again heading back towards the bunk beds with a mumbled, “‘Night, Draco.”

Draco sat there for a few minutes but he didn’t wait around for Ron’s sawing snores to start up and, instead, he slipped his boots and coat back on and went outside.

“Draco? Is everything alright?” Ron called out to him. Draco hoped that the other man would follow him and give Draco the opportunity he needed to ask Ron what the hell was going on with them, but the tent remained stubbornly closed.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just need some fresh air,” Draco called back, disappointed. He cast a considering look over at the ring of stones but decided that starting a fire this late at night would be a waste of time and effort and, instead, decided to keep warm with some brisk activity.

The moon was still bright, only a few days past the full moon, and it was enough so that the snow stretching across the small meadow was a cool blue. Draco grabbed the axe from the block that Ron used to chop their firewood and headed off in the direction of the treeline. Frustration and the remnants of the drinks from earlier leading him to think,  _ how hard could chopping wood be, anyway? _

Draco traipsed through the woods until he found a fallen tree, then set to burning off the last of the alcohol coursing through his veins as well as a good deal of sexual frustration. If only it weren’t so cold out, now would have been a good time to enjoy a nice wank, but the nipping cold was counter-productive to that particular need right now. Draco had never had a particularly high sex drive, but even he was starting to feel the itching need after two weeks. Canvas walls didn’t provide nearly enough privacy for such activities.

After about twenty minutes, Draco had managed to hack away two good-sized logs and he gathered them up and headed back to the camp. He dropped the logs down with the others and then collapsed into one of the fold-out chairs that they had left out around the fire. The exercise had him sweating and he pushed the woollen cap back off his forehead and pulled it off his head, enjoying the immediate cooling as the sweat in his hair dried.

Draco was running his fingers through his hair, brushing it back from his forehead, when he happened to look up and down towards the river’s edge and froze. There was a dark figure standing a couple of metres out into the water. He was too far away to make out the features, but Draco’s skin crawled as he felt the aggressor’s eyes creep over him.

Draco rushed to his feet, the chair clattering backwards with the movement, and he was just about to call for Ron and run into the tent when the heavy object in his right hand registered and he looked down to see his fingers wrapped tightly around the wooden handle of the axe.

Anger and resentment exploded inside of him and Draco was suddenly sick of it all. This nutter had been stalking and terrorising him for months. He had chased Draco out of his home and attacked him. He didn’t want to be afraid of this tyrant anymore and he didn’t want Ron to fight his battles for him.

Indignation surged through him and propelled him forward. He ran towards the water’s edge, not stopping as he ran straight into the river, the thin layer of ice nowhere near thick enough to support his weight. The figure was further out than Draco had gauged, but he charged on, heedless of the freezing temperature of the water as it soaked through his shoes, socks and trousers.

A mirthless laugh came from the man in front of him, but he was still too far out of reach. Draco didn’t stop to wonder how that could be when the man never seemed to move; instead, he let the mocking sound fuel his rage and push him deeper into the increasingly muddy river, the thick bottom sucking at his legs and holding him down.

He let out a shout of surprise as his foot slipped and the river’s bottom dropped suddenly, throwing him off balance. He plunged under the surface, paralysingly cold water rushing into his open mouth and suffocating him. He scrambled around to try to regain his footing, but his clothes were now water-logged and it felt like every one of his limbs was weighted down, pulling him under.

He managed to splutter to the surface a few times and suck in a few paltry gasps of breath, but then his foot became snagged on a submerged branch and even that small respite remained elusively out of grasp, the light of the moon wavering just below the surface before his eyes slid shut and there was only cold darkness.


	20. Ron

“DRACO!” Ron screamed as he sprinted towards the river.

Ron had been lying in bed, unable to sleep as his mind raced in circles. He was finding it harder and harder to stop himself from—well, to be honest, from grabbing Draco and snogging him senseless. When Draco had stroked his hand slowly, Draco’s touch had set off a series of fireworks across Ron’s skin, making him tingle and his heart swoop. It had taken all the strength he had to reclaim his hand rather than bodily throw himself on top of Draco, pushing him down into the cushions of the chesterfield and becoming intimately acquainted with the other man’s body.

Ron had to physically grab hold of himself, blood rushing out of his brain where it was sorely needed and pooling in his cock at the idea. He had beat a quick retreat, needing the safety of physical distance between him and Draco to help maintain the shredded remnants of his self-control.

When Draco had left the tent, Ron had wrestled with himself on whether he should follow the other man. His professional obligations were screaming at him that he should go with Draco and keep him safe, but the only person he wouldn’t be able to keep him safe from right now was Ron himself, so he played it safe and stayed where he was.

He felt like a coward. And also randy as fuck. He briefly considered darting into the loo for a quick wank, just enough that it would deflate the raging erection that was very insistently poking against the soft cotton of his pyjama bottoms, but the only thing that could possibly make this situation any more untenable was if Draco walked in to find Ron mid-pleasuring himself when his focus was supposed to be on protecting Draco.

He lay still in the bunk, his ears open for any sounds of distress, ready to spring into motion at the first alert of danger. He breathed a sigh of relief and smiled ruefully to himself when he heard the distant sound of wood being chopped. Ron clearly wasn’t the only one that was feeling this growing attraction between them—or the growing frustration it fostered. He wished he’d thought of going off and chopping some wood—exorcise the need through exercise.

Ron was still awake a while later when he heard the clattering sound of firewood being added to the pile outside. He was surprised when Draco didn’t reappear in the tent, but he tried not to panic. Until he heard the shout.

Ron sat up so quickly that he banged his head on the bed frame, but he paid the pain in his forehead no mind as he launched himself out of the bed and ran towards the tent. He got there just as Draco went splashing into the water and Ron took off after him, not even stopping to put on any shoes as he charged across the snow in his stockinged feet.

“DRACO!” he shouted again as he reached the bank of the water, the polished stones on the riverbank shifting under his feet and throwing him off balance. He watched as Draco slipped under the water and disappeared below the surface. When he didn’t reappear, Ron charged in after him, sucking in a shocked breath at the biting cold of the freezing water. The shock was so great that he came to a stop, his muscles freezing in self-preservation. Every instinct he had was screaming for him to retreat back to the tent, but he forced himself forward, each new inch of skin that was submerged screaming anew in protest.

It had probably only taken him a handful of seconds to make his way into the water, but fear had already closed its hand around his heart and was slowly crushing it as Draco didn’t reappear. Taking a deep breath, Ron dove under the water and forced his eyes open looking around in the murky depths until a flash of colour grabbed his attention.

Sharp, stabbing knives of icy pain lanced through every inch of his body from the cold as he swam down and found Draco, who was bent over and pulling frantically at his leg, which was trapped between a submerged log. Ron tried to lift the log, but it was too heavy and he couldn’t shift it with the lack of leverage. Draco looked panicked and terrified and Ron felt the same feelings creeping in and taking root in himself, but he fought the feeling of hopelessness.

If only they had their wands on them! The risk of death was far more imminent from their current circumstances than the off-chance that they were being tracked. But after a few near-misses where one or the other had unthinkingly pulled out their wand and almost cast a simple everyday spell, they had decided to leave their wands out of reach and out of temptation.

Deciding on a plan, Ron swam over to Draco and motioned for his attention. Draco’s eyes were pleading with him to save him and Ron tried to communicate reassurance back at him. Using hand gestures, Ron indicated that he was going to go up to the surface and then come back down. Draco nodded faintly, but his eyes looked sad like he didn’t expect Ron to return.

Ron kicked up to the surface, which was mockingly close, only long enough to suck in a deep breath before diving back down again. Ron motioned for Draco to release what was left of the breath that he was holding and Draco looked panicked at the idea. The oxygen in his breath had to be pretty depleted by now and Ron knew that if he didn’t get a fresh supply, Draco was risking passing out and drowning. After what felt like an infinity, Draco appeared to come to a decision and a burst of bubbles came out of his mouth and rose to the surface between them. Not wasting any more time, Ron took hold of Draco’s head and brought their mouths together.

After days of fantasising about doing just this, it felt like a cruel irony that he was finally kissing Draco and was deriving absolutely no satisfaction from it. He fed Draco the breath he had taken, hoping that this would work just long enough for them to get Draco free. When his lungs were deflated and empty, he pulled away and shot to the surface, grabbing another lungful for himself before diving back down again.

Ron tried once again to move the log but met with the same results. Growing desperate, he scanned the small area around them that he could make out and was shocked to see the familiar red-painted head of the axe that they used to cut firewood half-buried in the mud. If only they weren’t underwater, that would be the perfect tool to resolve this situation, but there was no way Ron could build up enough momentum to strike the log with enough force to cut it away.

Still, it was the only thing he could see that may be remotely helpful, so he would have to make it work somehow. Grabbing it, Ron felt around on the ground under the log until he found a large rock that he thought would work and then lodged the axe between the log and the rock. He pushed on the handle of the axe as hard as he could and for one terrifying moment, he thought this wasn’t going to work, but then the log shifted just enough that Draco’s foot slipped free.

They both scrambled to the surface and sucked in life-affirming breaths and Ron enjoyed a moment of pure joy that they’d managed to do it and Draco would be fine, but then reality crashed in on him. The immediate danger was passed, but they were now soaking wet in freezing weather and hypothermia was the next threat to be dealt with.

Draco already seemed to be slipping away as they stumbled together and emerged from the water, his legs uncooperative and moving in erratic, jarring stops and starts. The idea of curling into a ball right here and trying to warm up seemed so appealing, but Ron forced them onwards, knowing that their only hope was to get back to the tent and the warmth of the stove.

By the time they made it to the tent, Draco was draped against Ron’s side, being dragged along. Through chattering teeth, Ron forced out a stream of reassurances, urging Draco to hold in there just a little while longer, that it would all be okay. They just needed to get warmed up again and they would be fine. They’d laugh about this tomorrow.

Draco didn’t say anything as his entire body was rocked by convulsions. Ron pulled him into the tent and the warm air inside, taking a few seconds to close the tent up tightly before setting to stripping both of them of their clothes. Draco seemed out of it and Ron had to physically lift his arms to get the sopping wet jumper and shirt off.

If it weren’t such a treacherous situation, Ron would have been bright red with embarrassment at the nakedness, but as it was, all he could see—which wasn’t much since his eyes were still blurry and felt dry from the water—was how pale Draco was. The man was always pale, but his skin was tinged with a pale blue colour that filled Ron’s heart with dread.

He left their sopping wet clothes in a pile by the entrance and ushered Draco over closer to the fire. Grabbing the blanket that was hung over the back of the chesterfield, Ron repurposed it as a towel, rubbing away the residual dampness that clung to their skin and absorbing as much moisture from their hair as possible.

Once they were as dry as possible, Ron left Draco by the fire and hustled over to their bunks on the other side of the tent; they were way too far from the stove and its life-saving heat, so he just grabbed the sleeping bags from the bunks and hurried back to the sitting area.

Remembering something Hermione had once told him about body heat, Ron didn’t second guess, unzipping the two sleeping bags and, with fumbling hands, combining them together into one large bag. Spreading it out on the ground not far from the stove, Ron coaxed Draco down to the floor and between the covers, closest to the stove before crawling in behind him and fumbling with the zipper, sealing them in.

Ron hesitated for a moment before turning on his side and curling in behind Draco, taking the other man in his arms. Their skin was clammy and cold everywhere they touched, the previous numbness just barely beginning to ease now that their body temperatures were beginning to rise. Draco’s entire body was still wracked with shivers, but they seemed to be diminishing in size and Ron figured that had to be a good sign.

After a long while, Draco’s shivers faded away and his body relaxed back against Ron’s, exhausted from all the activity. Draco’s breathing smoothed out as he drifted off to sleep and Ron breathed a sigh of relief, ruffling the damp hair at the nape of Draco’s neck. Closing his eyes, he let the exhaustion wash over him and he drifted into sleep, pulling Draco in close.

  
  


Ron woke up sweating and disoriented. For a few seconds, he couldn’t process what was happening and why there was a long, lean body plastered against him. He was just about to push the stranger away when the previous night’s events came back to him. He ran frantic hands over Draco’s back and down his arms, trying to reassure himself that the other man was safe before dropping his head back down—too swiftly, as his pillow seemed to have shifted away over the course of the night and his head conked against the solid wood of the floor.

“Are you okay?” a sleepy voice asked, the vibration soft against his chest from where Draco’s head was resting.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Hermione always said I could be thick-headed sometimes, so nothing to worry about,” Ron groaned as he reached up and felt around until he found the rogue pillow and yanked it back into place.

“It’s no wonder you’re still single. Talking about your ex-wife first thing when you wake up next to someone else is very bad pillow etiquette,” Draco teased in a sleepy voice.

His words reoriented Ron’s thoughts and now his head was very much the least of his worries as he realised that he was naked and so was Draco and one part of his body was very much a morning person. Suddenly he was grateful for the tropical level of heat in the room because it was easy to pass off the blush that bloomed down his chest as a side effect of sleeping next to the roaring fire all night.

Ron shifted uncomfortably and reached up to push the sweaty strands of hair off his forehead, unsure how to even begin this conversation. Fortunately, he was saved from solving that problem by Draco.

“Being this sweaty is only enjoyable if it’s born of a wild night of passion,” he complained before leaning forward over Ron’s chest and pulling at the toggle of the zipper. The air in the tent was still warm being this close to the fire, but it was still a cool relief after the smothering inferno of the sleeping bag and Ron sighed in relief.

That was until Draco shimmied down to unzip the bottom of the sleeping bag and Ron sucked in a gasp of breath at Draco’s proximity to his cock. There was no way that the other man could miss that very obvious sign of Ron’s arousal, nor the jerk of interest it decided to let out at the idea of Draco slipping his mouth over the tip and swallowing him down. That was a wet heat that Ron would avidly welcome, even now.

Draco didn’t say anything, the soft brush of his slightly wavy hair the only contact on his eager flesh. To his surprise, once Draco had released half of the sleeping bag and tossed it off of them, he settled back against Ron’s side, laying his head back against Ron’s chest.

Ron laid there with his arm outstretched for a few moments, but he gave up resisting the urge and wrapped it around Draco’s back. It felt far too natural to hold the other man in his arms. They didn’t say anything for a long while, Ron too tongue-tied and distracted to get his scattered thoughts in order. Draco traced soft shapes across his chest, occasionally twirling a small patch of Ron’s chest hair around his index finger. Eventually, the aching lust softened and some much-needed blood returned to his brain.

In a soft voice, he said, “Draco, we need to talk about what happened last night.”

A drawn-out sigh skated across his chest, tickling the hairs there. “You mean when I acted like a complete numpty and almost got both of us killed?”

“Well, yeah. That.” Ron huffed out a small laugh before sobering. “What were you thinking? Why would you go run into the river like that?”

“I really don’t know. I should have come in and got you, but I just saw him standing there and I kind of lost it. I’m tired of this guy harassing me and I just… snapped. I just wanted to tear him apart myself.”

Ron’s brows drew together as he listened to Draco speak. “Draco, are you saying you saw someone out there? In the river?”

Draco nodded, the side of his face rubbing against Ron’s chest with the motion. “Yeah, he was just standing there… lurking. I just… I took off after him without thinking. Once I got to the river, I knew it was cold, but he was just standing there, menacing, and before I knew it, I was in the river. I don’t know where he went, but then I was slipping under the surface and I was stuck and I couldn’t get free. I don’t know where he went.”

Ron cast back to his own memories of last night, trying to look past the raw terror he’d had for Draco and inspect his memories to see whether he had noticed anything of the like, but he’d never noticed anyone else there. “Are you sure you saw someone? Maybe it was just… I don’t know… a shadow from one of the trees?”

The weight lifted off his chest as Draco sat up, leaning on his elbow and glaring intently at Ron. “You don’t believe me, do you?” he accused.

Ron’s hand was still resting against the stretch of smooth, white skin of Draco’s back and he wanted to pull the other man back down against him and reassure him that he did believe him. He retraced those moments again, when he’d watched as Draco had charged towards the river’s edge, but there was nobody there, the reflection of the waning gibbous moon unbroken across the surface of the river seconds prior to Draco’s frigid plunge.

“I believe you that you believe you saw someone,” he offered tentatively, before reluctantly continuing, “but I didn’t see anyone there.”

Draco pulled himself further away, Ron’s hand falling away. “I can’t believe you still don’t believe me,” Draco said, betrayal etched clearly on his face.

“Draco, I did—”

“You think I’m crazy, is that it?” Draco said, his voice rising. “After all this time, I thought you finally believed me. I thought we were…”

Ron sat up and reached for Draco, wanting to comfort him, but Draco pushed him away and stood up. Grabbing the blanket that Ron had used as a makeshift towel last night, Draco wrapped it around his waist and Ron covered himself with the sleeping bag cover. Draco paced the floor in distress and Ron wanted to tell him any number of pretty lies that would make him feel better, but he didn’t want to lie to him either.

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Ron reassured him. “But I do know that I didn’t see anyone in the river last night. To me, it just looked like you went running into a freezing river for no reason.”

“Maybe they Apparated away or something,” Draco suggested. “You weren’t there the whole time. Maybe he had already left by the time you got outside.”

“Maybe,” Ron conceded. “But didn’t you say that he was still there by the time you got to the river?” Draco nodded minutely and Ron continued, “Well, I was there to watch you go in and I didn’t see anyone there.”

Some of the anger faded away from Draco and a creeping doubt settled in. “Well… maybe you were too far away?” Draco paused, seeming to grasp for explanations for their divergent memories. “Or… maybe he was already gone by then… I don’t know, it all happened so fast.”

Draco rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands before collapsing onto the couch, his body bowed over as if he no longer had the strength for any of this. Ron awkwardly stood up, juggling to keep the sleeping bag covering up his bits, and took a seat next to Draco on the couch, who seemed to look amused by Ron’s clumsy approach.

“I don’t think you’re a liar, Draco,” Ron said genuinely. “I don’t think you’re making this all up, but I think it’s possible that maybe you’re seeing things that aren’t actually there.”

Draco gave him an incredulous look. “So you believe me, but you don’t believe me. Convenient.”

Draco’s sharp features were drawn in desperation and uncertainty. It reminded him of how Draco looked in their sixth year when Tom Riddle was punishing Lucius by using him as a proxy. Draco’s arrogant confidence had melted away over the course of that year and every time Ron had seen him, he had looked one step closer to breaking down. Back then, he hadn’t been invested, really. But now, he would accept any deal with the devil if he could take Draco’s place and ease his burden.

“We were here all night, completely helpless, but nothing happened. If someone had found us, don’t you think that would have been the ideal time to attack us? When we were both incapacitated from the cold?” Ron asked reasonably.

Draco didn’t say anything at first and Ron could practically hear his mind whirring as he tried to come up with some other explanation for the fact that they both woke up this morning safe, albeit a little worse for wear.

Draco’s head dropped between his shoulders and whispered, “What if I am going crazy?”

Ron tentatively reached up a hand and placed it on Draco’s back. Draco didn’t pull away at the touch and Ron took that as a good sign. “Then we’ll get you to St Mungo’s and they will find out what’s going on with you and I won’t let them rest until they figure out how to fix it.”

Draco laughed mirthlessly and Ron watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I almost got you killed,” Draco whispered roughly. “You could have died last night, and it is all my fault.”

Trying to lighten the mood, Ron smiled fondly at Draco. “I guess that means that we really are friends, then.” When Draco’s brows drew together in confusion, Ron chuckled and explained, “Harry must have almost got me killed at least fifty times.”

Draco smiled weakly. “At least the Janus Thickey Ward will have showers. I miss showers.”


	21. Draco

They decided that they would pack up their camp that day and Apparate back to London, but they both seemed to be dragging their heels as they got ready to leave. Draco was nervous about going to St Mungo’s, though whether he was more concerned that they would find something or that they wouldn’t, he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure what Ron was thinking, but he thought maybe it was because, like himself, the other man was also feeling reluctant at the idea of leaving this cosy bubble of existence they’d formed around themselves.

It had been years since Draco had gone this long without an appointment, or a meeting, or some other pressing issue to attend to, and if it weren’t for the looming threat, he would say that this was perhaps the most relaxed he’d been since the war. Over the past few weeks, he had gotten to know a whole new side of Ron and it felt a bit tenuous, like that newfound connection might not survive outside of these canvas walls.

Draco shook himself and refocused back on the dish in his hands, which he had been wiping over and over for the last few minutes as his mind wandered. They had cooked breakfast together—possibly their last—and eaten together in near silence, the crunch of Draco’s crisp, overcooked bacon (Ron preferred his bacon chewy) the only sound for the majority of the meal as each half-hearted attempt at conversation evaporated away.

After breakfast, Ron stayed outside to begin disassembling their camp while Draco had gone inside to wash their dishes and pack their things up. Unfortunately, he hadn’t yet managed to proceed past the dishwashing as his mind kept running away with him.

Setting the now pristine dish in the rack, Draco rinsed his hands and turned around, trying to decide what to tackle next. Over in the sleeping area, he carefully folded not only his own clothes but Ron’s as well, stopping occasionally to sniff at the material, trying to memorise Ron’s smell.

When he got to the thick hand-knitted jumper with the big P knitted onto the chest, Draco felt the sudden urge to squirrel it away and keep it. He’d grown rather fond of the atrocious garment and wished that he could keep it for himself. The jumper was surprisingly comfy, but more than the physical comfort, Draco found himself envying the emotional comfort it represented: the feeling of safety and belonging that being a member of the Weasley family offered.

After listening to countless stories of Ron’s childhood and chaotic holidays and crowded family gatherings, Draco found himself wishing he could be a part of it. His childhood home had been one of extremes: the Malfoy mansion filled to the brim with glittering, polite strangers at one of the innumerable fetes that his father loved to throw to showcase their wealth and status, and then empty and echoing once everyone had gone home, cold rooms outnumbering people ten to one.

Draco very deliberately folded the jumper, arranging the arms in perfect, crisp folds, showing it the care and attention he now felt it deserved, before placing it on top of all of the other clothes that Ron had loaned him and tucking them away in Ron’s duffel bag to be returned back to his brother’s closet. He regretted that he couldn’t at least launder all the loaned items first, but he was sure that Mrs Weasley would forgive the discourteousness.

The clothes that they’d been wearing last night were still sopping wet, so there wasn’t much he could do for those. He squeezed out as much of the excess water as he could and then stuffed them into the bag, hoping that the magic of the bag provided enough air supply that mould and mildew wouldn’t grow on them.

He was shuffling the coals in the stove around, making sure that the fire was fully extinguished, when a shadow fell over him. He was just about to turn around and ask Ron if everything outside was sorted when a hand closed over his throat and he was hauled upwards, breath cut off. He struggled against his attacker as they fought their way over to the kitchen. He tried to shout out to get Ron’s attention, but a fist landed in his stomach, knocking all the air out of his chest, robbing him of his voice. He saw their wands tucked into the utensil holder and he made a desperate grasp for them, his fingers reaching, but he missed, sending the wands and utensils clattering to the floor.

“Draco? Is everything okay?” Ron’s concerned voice came from outside and he tried to call out to him, but the hand around his throat squeezed tighter.

His eyes were wide with panic as two things happened at once: the tent flap opened and Ron’s head appeared, the hair that had grown long enough over the past few weeks that it was now tucked behind Ron’s ears to keep it out of his face, coming into view; and he felt a wet trickle of blood slide down his neck as the sharp point of one of the kitchen knives was held against his throat.

Ron froze in place, sharp Auror eyes narrowing and taking in the situation before his hands slowly rose in a placating gesture. “It’s okay. It’s only me.”

Draco’s eyes bulged as he tried to encourage Ron to run, to get out of there and save himself, but Ron either didn’t understand what Draco was trying to communicate silently or chose to ignore it, because he took one slow, steady step forward, eyes locked on Draco.

“Let’s just put the knife down, okay?” Ron suggested as he took another step closer.

Draco wasn’t sure how Ron was remaining this calm, his eyes never leaving Draco’s as he spoke so calmly. The man holding him never responded though, his icy silence suggesting that negotiations were not part of his action plan. His only response as Ron took another step closer, just about at the chesterfield now, was to tighten his grip on Draco’s throat and twist the knife, a fresh drop of blood slipping out of the wound and trickling down his neck. He could feel the damp spot on his collar that was slowly becoming stained with his blood.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I promise,” Ron said, voice soothing.

Draco wasn’t sure what Ron’s plan was, but whatever it was seemed to be working as the iron grip over his throat loosened a little and he sucked in a lungful of much-needed air.

“That’s it. Let’s all just calm down.” Ron was only about two metres away now and Draco wondered if he could somehow throw off the balance of his attacker and get Ron an opening.

Scanning the floor frantically, he found what he was looking for, the dark wood of his wand sticking out from underneath the shelving unit, which was only a couple of feet away from Ron. When Draco was sure that he had Ron’s attention, he shifted his gaze pointedly down at the wand and back, repeating the gesture a few times until Ron did the same. Maybe he could buy a couple of seconds of distraction, just enough time for Ron to grab hold of the wand.

Ron seemed to understand, but he shook his head minusculely once to one side in rejection of Draco’s proposal. Instead, he took one more step closer.

“Draco, I need you to look at me now,” he said, his voice low and steady and lending Draco a feeling of calm. The grip on his throat loosened once more, but the knife was still digging into the soft flesh of Draco’s throat, the threat very much still present. “I need you to put the knife down. You’re bleeding.”

Draco was confused. Ron kept speaking to him as if he was the threat here when obviously he was the victim. Ron’s gaze had been steady on him since he’d emerged into the tent, only briefly darting away to the wand at Draco’s insistence. Draco shook his head in confusion, barely cognizant of the sharp jolt of pain as the action drove the tip further into his neck, a steady surge of blood emerging now, leaving his neck and chest sticky.

“I’m sure you’re confused right now, but just focus on me, alright?” Ron said, voice rising slightly as his eyes darted down to the growing wound on Draco’s neck. “Do me a favour, yeah? Hand me that plate that is just beside you there?”

Draco’s eyes slid over to the dish rack where their breakfast dishes lay drying from earlier. He had no idea what Ron was doing, but he knew the Auror must have a plan, so he reached out to grab the plate—only, nothing happened. Draco’s brows crumpled in confusion as he tried to lift his arm to reach out and grab the plate, but nothing happened. He couldn’t get his arm to move at all, and now that he was focusing on it, he realised that he couldn’t actually feel it. A fresh surge of fear rushed through Draco as he turned a pleading look back at Ron.

“It’s alright. You’re going to be alright. I’m guessing you couldn’t do it, right?” Draco began to nod that Ron was right but stopped abruptly when Ron interjected. “Can you speak instead? I don’t want that cut to get any worse, alright?”

Draco was about to shake his head that he couldn’t speak, but he found that the effects of the solar plexus punch had worn off and he was now breathing normally—or about as normally as could be expected, given his panic. What’s more, the punishing grip on his throat had relented yet more and, though he could still feel the hand pressing on his windpipe, he wasn’t being starved of air anymore.

“No,” he managed to get out in a croaky voice.

Ron looked slightly relieved and, against all odds, Draco felt better at the sight.

“When you do that yoga stuff, it’s all about focusing right? You focus individually on each part of your body in turn and tune out everything else?” he asked. Obviously, Ron had actually been listening to Draco when he’d told him all about why he’d gotten into yoga and how he found it helpful. Draco went to nod again but managed to stop himself, the corners of his lips quirking up instead and Ron nodded that he understood. “Good. So I want you to try something with me, yeah? I want you to focus on the pinky of your left hand. Only your pinky. I want you to focus on that pinky and try to move it for me, okay? Can you do that?”

Trusting Ron knew what he was doing, Draco closed his eyes and did as Ron requested, centring his mind and focusing on that one small finger, trying to make it move. At first, it felt kind of fuzzy, like there was something blocking the nerves of his arms at his shoulder, but he focused harder, probing the strange sensation until he managed to slip through. It was as if a string of lights had suddenly turned on as sensation returned to that finger and he issued the command for it to move.

Simultaneously, there was a shift of movement against his chest. Draco couldn’t process what was happening for a few seconds until realisation crashed over him and his eyes shot open and latched onto Ron.

“That’s it. That’s good. Now see if you can do the others,” Ron said proudly, moving closer now so that he was just out of reach.

Now that he understood what was happening, it was easier to regain control of the rest of his fingers and the hand around his neck finally dropped away. Draco looked down at it in confusion, examining it as if it was all an elaborate trick somehow. How else could he explain that it had been his own hand closed around his neck, choking off his air?

He was so distracted by what had just happened that he didn’t even feel the knife slice further into his neck until Ron wrapped his hand around Draco’s other hand, fist clenched tightly around the handle, and slowly peeled his fingers up until the knife was free and Ron sent it clattering across the floor.

“Fuck, your neck!” Ron barked out, voice laced with panic now that the immediate threat had passed. He looked around frantically for a few seconds until his eyes landed on Draco’s wand once more and then relief washed over him. Darting over to it, he had retrieved it and was pointing it at Draco’s neck, casting Healing Charms over the cut. It didn’t take long before he was lowering the wand and inspecting Draco’s neck, so the cuts were evidently superficial.

“Are you okay?” Ron asked, his hands running restlessly over Draco’s neck, shoulders and arms.

Draco almost wanted to laugh at the question; obviously, he was nowhere near okay. “I don’t know. What just happened?”

Ron grabbed him, pulling him into his arms and Draco froze for a moment before sinking into the comforting gesture. “I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out.”

  
  


Several hours later, Draco sighed as yet another Healer excused himself from the room to go find someone to consult with. After his attack, Ron had Apparated them directly to St Mungo’s and demanded someone see to Draco right away. Ron had tried to stay with him, but the Healers had been adamant that only family was allowed in the examination areas.

Ron had been about to protest, but Draco had assured him that he would be fine. Ron had admitted that he should check in with the DMLE and see whether they’d made any progress with the investigation since they’d left, but he still looked reluctant to leave Draco alone. It wasn’t until the appearance of Healer Granger that Ron had stammered out a promise that he would be back later and had hightailed it out of the room.

Granger had been uncharacteristically flustered when she’d seen her ex-husband in the room, leaning close and whispering to him. She looked like she wanted to say something to Ron, but he beat his retreat quickly and didn’t give her the chance. After that, she had been the picture of professional, asking Draco a series of increasingly sensitive questions as she’d done an initial assessment and not betraying any of the dislike that he was sure she must foster for him. He wanted to squirm under her intense gaze, paranoid that she could somehow sense that Ron and he were… well, he wasn’t entirely sure what they were, but it had the potential to be something. If she did have her suspicions, she didn’t voice them, focusing entirely on his medical examination.

After she’d completed the initial assessment, she had seemed stymied and had gone in search of a consult. Draco practically had to bite his tongue, itching to poke fun at her inability to solve a problem all by herself, which was so unlike her, but he had enough self-preservation to know that he needed her help right now. Besides, if he had to admit it, jealousy was fuelling part of his desire to take the piss out of her. If he could re-train himself to be nice to Ron, he was sure he could do the same for Granger.

Now, a rotating cadre of Healers had been in and out of his room and if they were getting any closer to a diagnosis, they weren’t sharing it with Draco. He was getting prickly with how someone new in one of those atrocious lime green robes would come in, poke and prod him for a few minutes, say nothing beyond something along the lines of, “Hmmm, interesting…” and then bugger off again.

The door opened once more and Draco hit his limit. “I’m not being poked with yet another wand unless somebody buys me dinner first!” he shouted before realising that it was Granger standing alone just inside the doorframe.

Granger looked surprised for a second and then her features smoothed out into careful neutrality, but her quirking lips betrayed her as she crossed the room to stand beside his bed. “Mr Malfoy, I think we—”

“Draco,” he interrupted. At Hermione’s look of surprise, he sighed. “We went to school together for six years. It’s weird hearing you call me Mr Malfoy. It sounds like you’re addressing my father.”

“Alright,” after a slight pause, she adds, “Draco. I think we may have an idea of what’s been happening to you.” She paused and Draco wondered if perhaps she was purposely trying to make him go insane. Or, at least more insane than he apparently already was, but before he could start ripping his hair out, she continued, “We believe that you have been cursed.”

“Wouldn’t I have remembered being cursed?” he asked, raking his memory for any conflict that he might have overlooked, but he couldn’t remember anything.

“It’s unlike any curse we’ve seen before. It seems to be a custom piece of magic.” She pointed at his left arm. “It seems to be feeding off of the magic in your Dark Mark. Has it been fading?”

Draco lifted his arm and inspected the mark closely, something he normally tried to avoid. He’d resigned himself to its presence, but that didn’t mean he needed to pay it any heed. He had become practised at seeing it without really noticing it. It did seem to be lighter, closer to the colour of a dark tan rather than the faded red it was in the past, but he couldn’t be sure when that happened.

“I guess so?” he said unsurely. Hermione’s brows drew together in scrutiny as she watched him and then cleared again.

“It’s hard living with a constant reminder of that time,” she said and Draco’s eyes darted down to her own arm, remembering the sounds of her screams as his aunt had carved that foul word into her flesh while laughing maniacally.

“I’m so sorry for that day, Hermione. For all of it, actually.” He’d already apologised to her years ago in the letter he’d sent, but he felt like it would never be enough to make up for all the wrongs he’d done.

“I know. You said as much in your letter. I forgave you for all of that years ago, but not for you. I forgave you  _ for me _ . I didn’t want to carry around all that anger and resentment anymore.”

“I know. You said as much in your letter,” he said, earning a smirk from Hermione. “You’re a better person than I am. I’m still not quite there with forgiving myself.” He wasn’t sure he would ever be able to fully forgive himself, but every day he tried to do better, and he supposed that was the best he could hope for.

“We’re not here to rehash the past. We’re here to talk about this curse of yours. Now, as I was saying, after some research and consulting contacts in the Department of Mysteries, we believe that this curse is something new. From what we’ve been able to determine, it looks like it is drawing power from the residual magic in the Dark Mark.”

“I thought the Mark was already inert,” Draco interrupted. “Isn’t that why all of them changed red after Tom Riddle was killed for good?”

“You call him Tom Riddle too?” Hermione asked, apparently distracted from the topic at hand.

“Oh, well, sort of. It’s a recent thing. Ron told me about how Harry makes you all call him by his real name because continuing to use his chosen name just gives him power,” Draco explained, feeling a little self-conscious.

“Ron told you that?” She didn’t wait for him to answer and, instead, went back to the previous subject, “Anyway, after Riddle died, most of the magic of the Mark did drain away, yes, but not entirely. It looks like the curse was designed to tap into the residual magic and use it to power the curse, sort of like a battery.”

Draco looked at the Mark in renewed horror. It was bad enough when he thought it was just an ugly red stain on his skin, but now he wanted to claw the flesh away with his own fingers at the idea that any of that monster’s magic was still lurking inside him.

“But… what?” Draco asked, at a loss for words. He was having trouble wrapping his mind around all of this and couldn’t formulate any more intelligent questions right now.

Hermione gave him a reassuring smile before conjuring a chair and sitting down beside him. Not having her looming over him was a definite improvement.

“Tom Riddle’s magic often included an element of loyalty to it. It’s the basic foundation of how the Mark worked; the bearers of the Mark were forced to make a fealty vow to Riddle,” she explained.

“Like an Unbreakable Vow? I never did anything like that!” he protested and she gave him another smile that was supposed to be reassuring, he was sure, but was starting to feel kind of condescending. Of course, that could also be because he felt like he was about fifty pages behind in a story and she was having to explain the plot to him.

“Agreeing to take the Mark  _ was _ the vow,” she said. “It’s part of how the magic of the Mark works.”

“Okay, well, that is horrifying. So what you’re saying is that I have some sort of evil generator implanted in my arm?”

“Under normal circumstances, the Mark is, as you said, inert. However, it seems that someone has developed a curse that taps into those basic threads of the Mark’s magic and has found a way to recycle the magic into something else.”

“Why didn’t I remember anything? I would have sworn on my life that I was actually being attacked. I had the bruises and marks to prove it.” Draco’s mind was reeling and he felt mildly nauseated, but he was desperate to understand what had been going on with him.

“We think all of your injuries were self-inflicted. Of course, outside of your control at the time.”

“But how? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Actually, there’s some historical evidence of Riddle’s magic behaving similarly. Peter Pettigrew died by his own hand—a hand that Riddle conjured for him,” she said matter-of-factly. “That’s actually what made me wonder if the Mark might be involved. Harry and Ron told me all about what they witnessed in the basement of your Manor and when you told me about what happened earlier that Ron witnessed, it seemed oddly similar.”

Draco didn’t say anything, trying to process all this information while Hermione continued, “The Muggles actually have something similar. It’s called Alien Hand Syndrome. There was a movie released a few years ago about it as well. It wasn’t very good, but the leading man is quite fit. Of course, in the movie, his hand was possessed by the devil, which is hardly the case here… though not entirely different, I suppose. Actually, I would be curious to know whether the reported cases of Alien Hand Syndrome are somehow magical related as they are quite rare. Of course, the human body is also highly complex and our brains are really quite miraculous and—”

“Hermione!” Draco said harshly, feeling like he was being drowned in an endless deluge of words. “Just tell me you can fix it.”

Hermione cleared her throat and looked down at his chart. He would bet she was collecting her thoughts. “We don’t know how to treat it just yet,” when Draco sagged in disappointment and let out a grunt of annoyance, she continued annoyed, “because, as I said,  _ this is a completely novel curse _ . It’s going to take us a few days to figure out an approach for it. We’ll keep you here and—”

“I’m not staying here for Merlin knows how long until you figure out how to fix this,” Draco protested.

“Draco, be reasonable,” Hermione argued. “This is the safest place for you. We can keep an eye on you and make sure you don’t have any relapses and—”

“Nope. I have a life and it’s been on hold long enough. Now that I know it’s in my head and that I  _ can _ regain control, I’ll be fine,” he maintained, throwing back the cover of the bed and moving to get up.

“Merlin, you’re just as stubborn as I remember,” Hermione groused, pushing him back down with a firm hand on his shoulder. “One night. Just stay one night. Let us monitor you for tonight—it will help us establish a baseline for how the curse builds up power which will help us work out how to treat it—and then you can check out tomorrow.”

They waged a war with each other, each glaring intensely at the other, insisting that they back down. Eventually, Draco sighed and collapsed back against the headboard, conceding. “Fine. One night.”

Hermione looked like the Kneazle that caught the Golden Snidget. “Wise choice. I’ll be back later before my shift is over to check in on you one last time. Try not to terrorise any of the staff.”

“No promises,” Draco mumbled under his breath, rearranging the blanket, which was rough and scratchy against his skin.

“Oh, and Draco?” Hermione said, looking back over her shoulder just before exiting the room. “Someone will bring you a dinner plate, but that should not be construed as an obligation to let them ‘poke you with their wand’.”

She slipped out the door before Draco could even begin to process that Hermione Granger had just made a sex joke.


	22. Ron

“Ron!” Harry jumped up from his perpetually messy desk, sending one of the teetering piles of papers tumbling over, and walked swiftly over to Ron and threw his arms around him. After a few reciprocal pats on the back, the two of them pulled apart.

“You didn’t miss me, surely?” Ron asked jokingly. “I’ve only been gone a fortnight.”

“Of course we’ve missed you. Ginny and your mum have gone around the bend with worry about you,” Harry said laughing, relief at seeing his friend whole and hale writ clear across his features.

“Gin missed me? Seriously? You’re taking the piss,” Ron accused, giving his best friend a suspicious look.

Harry laughed and grinned at him. “No, she has… but, to be fair, she’s also been pretty emotional about pretty much anything lately. The pregnancy hormones are in full swing and I’m never quite sure whether she’s going to laugh, cry, or smack me upside the head. Sometimes she does all three at once.”

“I don’t envy you that,” Ron said. His sister was notorious for having a lightning-quick temper under normal circumstances, so he could only imagine how precarious it would be now that her pregnancy hormones were kicking in.

Harry just shrugged good-humoredly. “It’s not all bad. The sex has been pretty great lately.”

“Ugh, gross! Don’t tell me about my sister’s sex life!” Ron protested, throwing his hands up over his ears in a protective gesture as if he could retroactively block the words from entering.

“She does this thing where she—” Harry began, a wide grin across his face as Ron cut him off.

“LA LA LA LA LA LA, I can’t hear you!”

The two shared a laugh together and then Harry said, “Fortunately she’s started eating for two now, so Molly’s been appeased by the fact that Ginny has been eating all of your portions whenever we go over there.”

“Yeah, well, I’m back now, so you can tell your wife, my sister, to keep her hands off my figgy pudding!” Ron warned. The pudding was one of his favourites, but his mum only ever made it for Christmas dinner, so there was always a fight over servings.

“Speaking of, why are you back? Did something happen?” The happiness at being reunited faded away and Harry watched him with concern, evidently only now realising that something must have happened to bring Ron back into London.

Ron proceeded to tell Harry about what happened over the last twenty-four hours—conveniently leaving out the evening’s sleeping arrangements—as he listened intently.

“So it was all in his head then? He really was barmy then?” Harry asked, looking amused. Ron felt a shot of irritation pierce him at his friend’s attitude.

“He’s not barmy. I’m sure he must have been cursed or something. You didn’t see him, Harry. He really  _ believed _ that someone else was there. He looked terrified,” Ron said irritably. Draco’s look of pleading that he’d given Ron in the middle of his attack ran through his mind’s eye again and he shuddered.

Harry eyed him carefully before settling into a more sombre tone. “But he’s in St Mungo’s now? I’m sure they’ll get to the bottom of what’s happened to him. Hermione won’t rest until she’s solved the puzzle and found a means of solving it.”

Ron looked away hastily at the mention of his ex-wife, flushing again at the way that he’d retreated in haste when he’d seen her earlier. He was perversely kind of relieved that Draco’s attack in his flat had happened when it did, as it had thoroughly distracted him from the whole Hermione and Krum dating news and had prevented him from doing anything brash that he would definitely regret later.

He had spent a lot of time soul-searching when they’d been camping, and the weeks away had given him time to analyse his feelings about the whole thing. He wasn’t angry anymore, but he definitely needed to sit down and have a discussion with Hermione about it all because he still wanted to know how she had gone from ending their marriage to reconciling with Krum.

But when Hermione had stepped foot into that hospital room, he knew that he wasn’t quite ready yet. He had been reassuring Draco, leaning close with his hands wrapped around one of Draco’s, and when he’d seen her familiar face, a flurry of guilt and embarrassment had left him at a loss to say and he’d made his escape before Hermione could demand any answers from him.

It wasn’t that he was embarrassed about his feelings for Draco, per se. They had snuck up on him, these feelings for Draco Malfoy. The more people he’d spoken to and the more he’d found out about the life that Draco was living now, the more he had found a grudging respect growing—until it was no longer grudging.

It was just that he didn’t quite know what they were to each other now. Ron was pretty sure that if he wanted to, he could pull Draco against him and live out every fantasy that had been running through his mind for the past few weeks. And he was done denying that he wanted to do all of it. Draco was challenging and surprising and funny. He drove him mad and made him crazy, and he knew that keeping Draco Malfoy in his life would never be boring.

Not to mention that, though Ron had tried not to notice to maintain some semblance of his professionalism, it was impossible for him to not notice that Draco Malfoy had a gorgeous, long cock and it made Ron yearn to take his time fully exploring every one of those fantasies he’d been nurturing.

But now was still not the time, unfortunately, and Ron refocused his attention on Harry. “Yeah, I’m sure Hermione will get to the bottom of what’s going on with him, but what’s been going on around here? Have you guys made any progress with tracking down the Army?”

Harry cast a despairing look over at the pandemonium on his desk. “We’ve tracked down a few leads, but nothing definitive yet. Aurors Latham and Bailey may have identified a low-level grunt in the group, so they’re working on getting him to flip and become an informant.”

“Your desk looks even more chaotic than usual.” Ron walked over to the bedlam and picked up one of the items at random: a brown leather book which, when he flipped it open and scanned its contents, turned out to be a list of the visitor logs to the Recall Hall. Ron scanned the long list but, not surprisingly, nothing jumped out at him.

“Robards has me buried under an avalanche of paperwork,” Harry said miserably.

“Are you still stuck on desk duty?” Ron asked, surprised. Harry’s injuries should have long since healed, but he wondered if Robards was still concerned that the Golden Boy might be at risk if he was put back on active duty. Nothing would be a faster way of committing career suicide than to get the saviour of the wizarding world killed; given the flurry of criticism that had erupted after the safe house attack that had killed Westenberg, he wouldn’t have been surprised if Robards was a little reluctant to risk a reprise.

Harry rolled his eyes, his lips thinning out in a look of annoyance. “Officially: no. But every time I’ve tried to volunteer to go out on an assignment, there’s a new report or log that needs to be reviewed. Of course, it doesn’t help that my partner up and abandoned me,” he added, sending a playful elbow jab in Ron’s direction.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ron said, brushing off Harry’s jibe and returning his attention to the book. “Half of these entries don’t even have any notations of what memories they viewed.”

Harry sighed. “Yeah, I’m aware. It’s made this whole thing feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. Apparently, the record-keeping down in Recall has grown a bit lax and if the person requests to view too many memories to fit in that little notation box, then they just don’t bother writing them down.”

“Bloody hell, then how are we supposed to know if they were there to watch any of the Death Eater trials, or if they were just there to relive the last time Britain won the Quidditch World Cup?” Ron asked, annoyed and slamming the shoddy logbook closed.

“The old-fashioned way. Track them down individually and question them,” Harry said. “The most excitement I’ve seen since you’ve been gone is when one batty old man told me to ‘get stuffed’ and slammed his door in my face before setting his two pet Jarveys on me, who he had apparently trained to call people an impressive array of creative insults.”

Ron couldn’t help but laugh at the image and Harry chuckled along with him. “Learn any good ones?”

“A few, but I don’t think I’d be able to say them aloud without blushing,” Harry said, smirking.

“So I take it there haven’t been any attacks on the new safehouses that Kingsley set up?” Ron asked.

Harry shook his head. “No, all quiet on that front.” He looked around at the other desks in the bullpen, the usual hubbub of activity droning on and nobody appeared to be paying them any mind, but Harry leaned closer and dropped his voice. “If there’s a mole, he or she hasn’t poked their head above ground since you’ve been gone. We’ve been strategically giving out false leads about their new locations to people, but nobody’s taken the bait yet.”

“That’s a good sign, hopefully,” Ron said. He didn’t want to believe that anyone in their department would knowingly betray them.

“Now that you’re back, you can help me with some of this,” Harry said excitedly, sweeping his arm over his disordered desk. At Ron’s torn expression, his face fell. “Unless you have somewhere else to be?”

“It’s just that I should probably let my mum and dad know that I’m okay.” Harry nodded in understanding and Ron added in an almost whisper, “And I want to check back in at the hospital and see if there’s any update on Draco.”

Harry looked like he was trying to suppress a smile. “Alright, mate. You go take care of all of that. I’ll let Gin know that you’re back safe and sound for you, so you can get to the hospital sooner. I’d offer to tell Molly, but there’s no way she’d be satisfied taking my word for it. She’s going to want to be able to give you a big bear hug.”

Ron chuckled. “Yeah, that’s what I figured too. Thanks, Harry. I’ll come back in bright and early tomorrow and try to help you make a dent on all of this.”

  
  


About an hour later, Ron had finally managed to wrest himself free of his mum’s arms and fretting and stepped out of the Floo at St Mungo’s. He had only been gone a couple of weeks, but by the way his mother reacted, someone would probably guess that he had been missing for 

years. She had crushed him in a hug that had gone on for a solid five minutes and then had refused to let him leave again until he’d had a bite to eat, claiming that he looked too thin. The Burrow’s pantry and icebox were fully stocked again and she set about heating him up a giant bowl of hearty stew. His dad’s reaction to his return had been more muted, but he looked just as relieved to see Ron back safe. Ron apologised for leaving the tent set up and his dad had waved him off, promising to go up and retrieve it himself tomorrow and to not worry about it.

Seeing his parents and feeling their obvious love for him left him feeling refreshed and he stepped out of the Floo with a feeling of optimism that he didn’t have before. He stopped at the front desk to confirm that Draco was still there and when he found out that he was in the same room, he made his way up to the fourth floor.

He stepped up to Draco’s door and stopped to watch the scene through the window: Draco seemed to be complaining about the meal that they provided him for dinner to an annoyed-looking trainee Healer. Ron chuckled to himself as he watched the other man toss a bowl of what looked like apple sauce back onto the tray above his bed. The food must have been pretty terrible if even the apple sauce wasn’t palatable.

He was so engaged in the amusing sight that he didn’t even notice Hermione approaching until she was right beside him.

“Is he being shirty again?” she asked, leaning over his shoulder to take a peek into the room. “I think he’s already offended half the Healers in the hospital. I heard whispers of someone performing a covert  _ Petrificus Totalus _ on him until it's time for him to go home.”

Ron pulled back, surprise writ clear across his face at her sudden appearance. When she registered his expression, she rushed to assure him, “I’m only teasing, Ron. Nobody would do that.”

“No, I didn’t think they would,” Ron agreed. He knew firsthand how vexing Draco could be when he wanted to be, and he would be lying if he claimed he didn’t entertain a vague notion of doing anything to quieten him up too. His ideas had definitely taken the form of a different kind of distraction though. “Any word yet on what’s going on with him?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Hermione said. “I can only reveal patient details to the patient and their emergency contact.”

“Oh, right, obviously,” Ron agreed hastily, casting another quick look into the room where the Healer was holding their wand over Draco, pausing periodically to make a notation in his chart.

“But you can go in and ask him yourself,” Hermione suggested. Ron turned back to her to find her scrutinising him.

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” Ron said before taking a deep breath. “But before I do that, is there somewhere that you and I can talk?”

“Of course,” Hermione said. Looking up and down the hallway, her eyes landed on the door of a maintenance closet and she took off towards it. Ron followed reluctantly behind her, his feet feeling as if they weighed one tonne each.

Hermione strode into the room and then spun around to face him while Ron gently pushed the door closed behind them. The room was small and crowded and smelled like lemons—not the subtle, refreshing smell that reminded him of Draco, but a harsh, pungent chemical smell that felt like it was clearing his nostrils. To his left, there was an open shelving unit with stacks of cleaning cloths and bottles of cleaning potion lined up while on his right was a deep basin sink that was a dullish grey, stained with years and years of dirt and grime, and an assortment of various mops and brooms were leaning in the far corner.

Ron reached up and grabbed one of the cleaning bottles, inspecting it. “I think this is the same floor cleaner that my mum uses.”

Hermione clucked her tongue and said, “It is. I introduced Molly to the hospital’s supplier three years ago. But I’m sure you didn’t pull me into this cleaning closet to talk about cleaning supplies.”

“Technically, you pulled me in here,” Ron countered.

“Ron, if you’re just going to waste my time, I have patients to see.”

“Sorry, I know you’re busy. You’re right, I don’t want to talk about cleaning products,” Ron said, replacing the bottle on the shelf and looking down at his feet.

“Well?” she asked, sounding a little perturbed.

“I heard that you and Krum are dating,” he blurted out in a rush, anxious for this awkward conversation to be over already.

“We’re not dating, Ron. Not exactly. We’ve gone out for coffee a couple of times and one dinner,” she explained.

“Sounds like dating to me,” Ron said. Hermione’s look shifted into one of outrage and Ron rushed to explain before she could lay into him. “I’m not trying to pick a fight, Worms.”

A small smile played on her lips as she said, “You haven’t called me that in a long time.”

“Oh, sorry,” Ron said. He thought that couldn’t be right, but when he scanned his memory to try and disprove it, he drew a blank. He gave her that nickname shortly after they had started dating—his little bookworm—but he never noticed before now that it had fallen out of favour with him at some point.

“Don’t apologise. You used to call me that all the time, but you reverted back to my full name almost two years ago. It is kind of nice to hear it again… Slugs,” she added, that coy smile tugging on the corner of her lips that he was so familiar with.

“I still don’t regret that,” he said. “Even now, I would still puke slugs for you, you know?”

She gave him a fond look that dampened some of the nervous awkwardness he was feeling. She may be his ex-wife, and their relationship may be changing, but she would always be one of his closest friends. And one day soon, he was sure, that relationship was going to reemerge, like a phoenix, to burn even brighter than before.

“Was there anything else you wanted to say to me?” she asked softly, watching him expectantly. She had always been so good at reading him.

“I’m not mad about you and Krum, really I’m not,” Ron rushed to assure her when her shoulders sagged, obviously preparing herself for another argument. “I was just wondering how it came about. I’ve never seen you so angry as that day when you found out about Krum and I. I was just wondering what he did to earn your forgiveness.”

Ron realised at that moment that he really did want to know the answer to that. He wasn’t angry or feeling betrayed that Hermione and Krum were dating anymore; he just wanted to know how to gain her forgiveness. He didn’t want to reconcile with Hermione romantically—they really weren’t perfectly compatible like he’d once thought—but he did want her back in his life. She had been such an important presence in his life since he was eleven years old and he still felt like a piece of himself was missing without her in it.

Hermione didn’t say anything at first, standing there and cooly observing him. He tried to make sure his body language was as non-confrontational as possible and waited patiently, hoping that she would humour him. Finally, she turned and leaned back against the sink, resting her hands on the ledge.

“It wasn’t the fact that you and Krum had sex together that bothered me,” she said.

“We didn’t exactly have sex,” Ron said, blushing and shifting uncomfortably.

“Oral sex is sex, Ronald,” Hermione said, exasperated. It had become a habit for him to downplay what had gone on that night, but now that he was feeling a little more comfortable with the idea that he was attracted to men, he really needed to break himself of that habit. Besides, that wouldn’t win him any favours with her, so Ron vowed to keep his mouth shut and let her finish.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. Please continue.”

Hermione sighed again and then threw her head back, her eyes closed. “You and Krum and I had been having sex together for almost a year. You really didn’t think that in all that time I hadn’t fantasised about you two together?”

Ron’s jaw dropped in shock and he quickly tried to cover it. “Really?” he asked incredulously.

“It’s quite common for women to enjoy watching two men together,” she said matter-of-factly. At Ron’s continuing look of surprise, she clucked her tongue and continued, “Oh really. Men frequently fantasise about two women having sex, why is the idea that the opposite is true be so surprising?”

He supposed it wasn’t, he’d just never heard Hermione mention anything of the sort. He was having trouble coming to terms with this new piece of information about a woman he thought he knew everything about.

“I thought you might have harboured similar fantasies, and I would have been open to exploring them if you had asked, but you never said anything and I didn’t want to push you,” Hermione said.

Ron leaned carefully against the shelving unit, feeling like he needed the support. “So, are you saying that if I had just told you that I wanted Krum as well as you, that we might still be together right now?” he asked, unsure whether he actually wanted to know the answer.

Hermione shook her head sadly and Ron felt a tiny flare of relief. It was Hermione that had finally worked up the courage to request a divorce, and Ron wasn’t sure that he would have ever gotten to that point. He would have just maintained the status quo of mediocre happiness rather than hope for something better.

“No, it wasn’t working between us. You know that. The thing with Krum just allowed us to ignore the root problems for a little while longer.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Ron said quietly.

“It wasn’t what you did that hurt me so much. It was that you hid it from me for so long.” She paused for a few seconds before continuing, “I knew the day after it happened, you know?”

“What?” Ron’s head shot up from where it had been hanging in shame at her admission. “How?”

“Krum stopped by the Ministry that next day before he had to leave to go back to Bulgaria. He wanted to tell me that he was sad that he couldn’t see me on that visit and told me what happened,” she explained.

“He just… told you?!” Ron shouted, surprise preventing him from modulating the volume of his voice.

“He didn’t just come out with it, but he made a vague comment about you ‘keeping him occupied in my absence’ and I eventually pulled the whole story out of him.”

“So you knew. For weeks! Why didn’t you say something before?” Ron asked, his mind reeling.

Hermione’s lips thinned and her brows drew together as anger took root and she rounded on him, one menacing finger pointed up at his face, making him grateful that Hermione had never shown much proficiency for wandless magic. “Because I was giving YOU the opportunity to tell ME, Ronald!” Now she was the one who was shouting and Ron cast a nervous look at the door behind him, contemplating a  _ Muffliato _ . “I wanted to give you the chance to do the right thing and be honest with me. I waited for as long as I could and you never did it. That’s when I knew we were well and truly over.”

He dropped his head into his hands and collapsed back against the shelves, sending the contents rattling. “Fuck. I’m such a tosser,” he muttered to himself. Hermione made no move to disagree with him. Lifting his head, he spoke, his hands cupped over his nose and mouth still, “I’m so sorry, Hermione. You deserve so much better.”

Hermione watched him for a few seconds, but then her hand dropped, the anger fading away to resignation. “You’re right. I do deserve better than that,” she said, before adding, “But you’re not a tosser, not really. So, now you know. I was never really mad at Krum—he was under the impression that you and I would have talked about the ground rules beforehand, which is fair. We should have. He never lied or tried to hide it from me.”

“Do you think we can ever get past this, Worms? Get back to being friends again? I miss my friend,” Ron said.

“I hope so,” she said sadly. “I miss my friend, too.”

Ron’s face lit up with a far-fetched idea, but it was out of his mouth before he could think the better of it. “Why don’t you come over to the Burrow for Christmas dinner? I know Ginny and Harry would love to have you there as well, and my mum and dad miss you as well. You can even bring Krum, if you want!”

Hermione chuckled at his eagerness. “I think it’s a bit soon for that, besides, I have plans to spend Christmas with my parents in France.”

Ron nodded in disappointment, but he wasn’t surprised; it was a crazy idea, after all.

“I should go check in with Draco and see how he’s doing. Thanks for this, Worms. I needed this,” he said as he pulled open the door and made to leave.

“Ron?” He stopped and looked back at Hermione. “Ask me again at Easter, if you want.”

He grinned and nodded before heading back down the hall to Draco.


	23. Draco

Draco did up the last button on his shirt and straightened the collar as he wondered what time it was. It took him a few seconds before he realised that he was free to use his magic once again and the answer was a mere  _ Tempus _ away. The pale green numbers emerged from his wand and arranged themselves in the air before, with an additional flick of his wand, they scattered and disappeared like a cloud of smoke.

It was nearly half-past four and Draco would have been tempted to just Apparate directly out of this room if he weren’t half-convinced that Granger would follow him and drag him back here. He was starving, having eaten not much more than a few paltry grapes, a toastie and a package of crisps since he’d arrived. He had heard the many jokes about how horrible hospital food was, but now he could personally attest to it.

At least he had a fresh change of his own clothes to wear home, courtesy of Ron. He had come back to the hospital last night and Draco had relayed to him everything he’d missed and the fact that he was being held hostage for the night. Ron had laughed at his dramatics and volunteered to go fetch anything that would make the hardship more bearable for him. He’d returned within the hour with Draco’s favourite silk pyjamas, the change of clothes that Draco was currently sporting, and the smuggled in toastie and crisps, which he’d nervously pulled out from under his coat. Draco didn’t even care that the toastie had practically been in the man’s armpit—anything was better than the dreck they’d tried to pass off on him earlier. Even the apple sauce, one of his favourites, had been bland and inedible.

Draco moved to sit down but, deciding he’d had enough of that hospital bed for now, he instead conjured himself a wingback chair in purple velvet. It was completely ostentatious and out of place against the clinical cream and white colour scheme of the hospital, but he was enjoying having the use of his wand back. And anyway, if he was going to have to sit here and twiddle his thumbs for who knew how long, he could at least be comfortable while doing it.

He took a seat and had just barely thrown one ankle up on the other knee when the door swung open and Hermione came in. She had worn her hair up in a tight bun yesterday, but now her hair was down, a dark halo encircling her head.

“You’ve certainly made yourself at home,” she commented, eyeing his chair with an amused smirk on her face.

“If it were up to me, I would have been home already,” he threw back. “Please tell me that you’re here to free me?”

The look she gave him could be interpreted as either annoyed amusement or polite irritation. He chose to believe it was the former. “As I told you yesterday, and three times today already, we promised to have you checked out of here no later than six o’clock, and it is not six o’clock yet.”

“That is true, but ‘no later’ implies that it could, in fact, be sooner,” he countered. “You can’t fault me for being an optimist.”

An odd sort of snort came out of her and she held up her hand as if she were covering up a smile. The moment was short-lived, however, and soon she was back to the serious professional demeanour she had most of the times they had interacted.

“I could fault you for many things, but apparently not for optimism, as you are right. I’m here to ‘free you’, as you say.” Draco leapt up from the chair in excitement and moved to pick up his winter coat, which was slung across the foot of the bed. He halted when Hermione continued speaking, “I just want to reiterate the instructions for you, however.”

Draco sighed and waved his hand in a ‘get on with it’ type gesture before it disappeared into the arm of his coat.

“You’re to contact me daily for check-ins. Do you have a corporeal Patronus, by chance?” she asked.

Draco stilled and shook his head; no matter how many times he had tried, he’d never managed to conjure one. He thought it was probably because of the stain on his signature from all the Dark Arts curses and hexes he’d performed during the war.

“An owl will be acceptable then,” she said.

“I don’t own an owl anymore,” he said. “Kind of hard to explain since I live in a Muggle building.”

Hermione looked unperturbed by this fact. “I suggest you allocate a portion of your daily allotment of exercise to walking to the nearest Owl Post Service Office then,” she said, her tone making it quite obvious that this caveat wasn’t up for debate, even if she didn’t add the next bit, “We must insist on this. It’s not entirely clear what this curse may be capable of, and though it seems to be focused on self-harm, we can use our discretion to keep you here against your wishes if we are concerned you may hurt someone else.”

Draco glared at the annoying witch, but eventually, he nodded.

“Good. I’m glad you are being so agreeable about this. We will also need you to come in for a check-up in person every four days so we can take new readings on the curse.”

“Do you also require an owl on those days, or is my in-person visit sufficient for you?” he asked snarkily.

It was definitely irritation now. “The daily owl check-ups can be skipped on those days,” she said slowly through rictus lips. “You know, we are trying to help you. It would be nice if you could stop being such a—”

“Prat? Tosser? Bellend?” he helpfully suggested.

“I was going to say ‘pain’ actually, but any of your suggestions would work too.”

“Look, I’m sorry. I’m just hungry, tired, and I want nothing more in the world right now than to be home. Plus, I hate hospitals and lime green robes should be banished on principle, they’re almost aggressive in their brightness.”

Her expression shifted back to amusement as she looked down at the aforementioned robes. “Yeah, they’re a bit much if you ask me too. I have been trying to drum up interest in updating the uniform and making it something more modern, but enacting any change can be slow. People are entrenched in tradition and it’s hard for them to imagine something different.”

Draco knew all about that. Even six years later, it was still an uphill battle to convince witches and wizards that their children would be perfectly safe—nay, the better for—socialising with Muggles and Muggle-borns before they ship off to Hogwarts.

“At least you wear the colour tolerably well,” he offered. “Your colouring at least suits it.”

That earned him a small laugh from Hermione. “Was that just a compliment from Draco Malfoy?” she asked incredulously. “If only my eleven-year-old self could have been here to witness that.”

“And why’s that?” he asked, intrigued.

“I very briefly thought you were rather fit,” she said simply.

“Is that so?” he asked, surprised by this news.

“Emphasis on ‘very’. It lasted for approximately the three seconds between when I first saw you and when you opened your mouth and spoke,” she said as she smirked at him, and he laughed.

“That’s fair, given our history,” he admitted. “If it’s any consolation, you wouldn’t have had a chance anyway. I had no interest in girls back then, and nothing’s changed in that regard.”

Hermione shrugged. “It wasn’t meant to be, I guess. So you’re gay then?”

“Yes. I was gay then and I am gay now.”

“In that case, can I ask you something personal? Pretend I’m not your Healer. You should feel free to not answer.”

He eyed her warily, not sure whether he wanted to hear what Hermione Granger, who happened to be the ex-wife of the first man that he had been even remotely interested in for months, had to say. He nodded hesitantly nonetheless.

“Is there something going on between you and Ron?” she asked, getting straight to the point.

“I’m not sure what you mean by ‘going on’,” he hedged.

Hermione’s lips drew together in a purse. “I think you do, Mr Slytherin. It’s fine if you don’t want to answer me, though.”

“We haven’t talked about it yet, so I can’t say for sure, but I think the potential is there,” he said boldly, the words coming out with the ring of truth to them. “Nothing has happened yet. But if you’re about to warn me off of him or something, you can save your breath becau—”

Hermione held up her hand and he trailed off. He felt prickly and defensive and he didn’t want to be having this incredibly awkward conversation right now. Surely he should at least get to kiss the man first before having to suffer the wrath of his ex.

“Ron and I are divorced and I don’t have any say anymore in who he dates.” Draco relaxed a bit at her words, hoping that was it. His luck, however, was non-existent—obviously, or he wouldn’t be in this hospital in the first place—and she continued, “I personally don’t see what he sees in you.” This last was accompanied by a scanning look up and down his person, the look on her face making it clear that she found the package not appealing in the least. “But he’s always been an excellent judge of character, so if he sees something in you, then there must be something there.”

“Thanks? I think?” he said, honestly unsure of whether he had just been complimented or insulted. Possibly both.

“I don’t know how much he’s told you about everything that happened between us—”

“He told me everything,” Draco said, enjoying the look of surprise that shot across her face before she managed to control it, even if it was slightly spiteful of him. He never claimed to be a saint.

“Right, well…” she said, seeming flustered. She collected herself quickly though. “As far as I am aware, he’s still new to this whole thing—”

“And what thing is that, exactly?” he asked with mock innocence.

She glared at him and then said, “Being gay. Or bisexual. Or whatever he finds he is… being with men in a romantic and sexual context.” Draco couldn’t stop the amused grin from breaking free and she rolled her eyes at him. “All I wanted to say was that you should be gentle with him, alright?”

“But what if he discovers that he’s quite interested in BDSM? Gentle may not be appropriate if that’s the case.”

“You are so annoying, do you know that?” she groaned. “Anyway, I’ve said my piece. Don’t hurt him. I’ll see you in four days.”

She had only taken two steps when he called after her. “I won’t hurt him. Not intentionally, anyway. Well, unless he asks me to.”

“Goodbye, Draco,” was all she said without turning around.

  
  


Draco Apparated directly into his flat and collapsed onto the bed. Right now, he couldn’t decide what was his more pressing need: sleep or food. Prying his eyes open, he looked around the space and noticed for the first time the small changes since the last time he’d been here. He shuddered as the memory came over him again, but he reminded himself that it had all been a hallucination, that no one had broken in here and violated his space.

Sitting up on his elbows, he took stock of what had changed though: the bed was neatly made (at least, it had been before he had dramatically fallen on it), the towel that he was wearing that night was nowhere to be seen (probably hanging back in his bathroom), and the shards of his favourite mug had been swept up. He was a little sad about the mug, wishing he could have tried to  _ Reparo _ it, but he appreciated Ron’s gesture, not wanting him to come home to the obvious signs of his illness.

Deciding that his rumbling stomach demanded his attention first, Draco pushed himself up and over to the kitchen. What he had forgotten to take account of was the fact that he hadn’t been here in over two weeks and his fridge was barely stocked normally anyway.  _ Nothing like Molly and Arthur’s fridge _ , he thought. He vanished the takeaway box which seemed to have an entire colony of new life growing in it and the milk, which he was both relieved and surprised to find didn’t come out in chunks, though the smell was something horrible.

Discarding the idea of going outside to procure food the instant it occurred to him, he lay back down on his bed and closed his eyes. Much like last night, however, he found sleep eluded him. The low thrum of the street traffic outside his window, much like the beeping and hushed voices of the hospital, felt wrong and he tossed and turned, unable to slip away out of consciousness.

He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, but he was saved from the failed attempt to catch forty winks by three loud raps on the door.

“Draco? Are you in there? It’s me, Ron.”

Feeling much more alert all of a sudden, Draco scrambled off the bed and turned to go towards the door, but he stopped. Feeling silly but doing it anyway, he took a few seconds to straighten the duvet cover and then took a quick look in the mirror. His hair was clean, at least, but although Ron had been kind enough to bring his clothes to him in the hospital last night, he hadn’t thought to ask for any of his toiletries, and his hair was a frizzy mess.

“Draco?” Ron called again, sounding worried.

“I’m coming! Calm down!” he shouted back. He didn’t have any time to do anything with his hair, it seemed, so he settled for just running his fingers through it and taming it as best he could. At least it was better than the greasy mess it had been before he had a proper shower at the hospital.

Hurrying over to the door, Draco took a quick moment to calm himself, taking a deep breath. Which proved ineffectual as Ron knocked and called out again and he yanked open the door in annoyance. “I said I was coming! Stop making such a racket or you’ll have my cranky neighbour, Mrs Ashworth, over here waving her cane at you!”

He stepped aside and let Ron in, a delicious aroma wafting past him and making his mouth water.

“Is that Indian?” he asked, following the thread of scent over to the table, where Ron was unpacking a plastic bag full of takeaway containers.

“I figured you probably wouldn’t have stopped to get food. Hermione mentioned that you were very ‘anxious’ to get home when I stopped by the hospital to pick you up. Thanks for waiting for me, by the way,” Ron said dryly.

“You weren’t there and they said I could go home. What was I supposed to do? Just sit there and make pleasant chit-chat with the hospital staff for over an hour?” Draco grabbed two plates and two sets of cutlery from the kitchen and set them out on the table.

“Fair point. It seemed like the Healers were happy to see the back of you, to be honest,” Ron said, grinning. He chuckled as Draco started piling heaps of various curries on his plate. “I assume I was right and you didn’t stop to grab a bite to eat before coming back here.”

“I could kiss you right now,” Draco said, so distracted by the food that the innuendo didn’t even occur to him.

Ron startled for a second and then a shy smile bloomed on his face. “At least you wouldn’t have curry breath now,” he joked softly. There was a soft glow to his cheeks as he said it and he looked down quickly and busied himself with tearing a bite-size chunk of naan, as if afraid to witness Draco’s reaction.

Draco scooped up a forkful of aloo gobi and said, “I know a very effective breath freshening charm for after,” before placing the food in his mouth. His eyes rolled back at the first bite of delicious food and he groaned. By the time he’d recovered his senses enough, he found Ron grinning at him, but whether it was from the promise of fresh breath being needed in their immediate future or his near-orgasmic reaction to the Indian food, he didn’t know.

“I wasn’t sure which curry you liked best, so I just got a few different options.”

“Prawn masala is my favourite, but I’m happy with any curry,” Draco said, scooping one of the other curries up along with some rice.

Draco told Ron all about the battery of tests that the Healers had run on him and what their working theory on the curse was as they ate their dinner. Draco asked Ron whether there had been any progress made on the Army investigation since they might still be behind his curse, but there was nothing that Ron could share with him since it was still an open investigation.

After they were done eating, Ron packed away all the leftovers into the fridge while Draco washed their dishes. He could feel the silence yawn between them as Ron went still behind him. He had been with plenty of men before, but there was something about this, about knowing this was Ron’s first time, that was making him feel nervous, like he was absorbing Ron’s uncertainty.

“So…” Ron began, trailing away for a few moments until he marshalled up some of that famous Gryffindor courage. “You mentioned something earlier about a breath-freshening charm?”

Laughing, Draco set the plate he’d been washing on the rack, pulled out his wand and spun around. A minty cool tingling filled his mouth as he wordlessly cast the charm and he crossed the small space and threw his arms around the other man, bringing their mouths together in a kiss that was full of longing and desperation.

Ron seemed surprised at first, frozen beneath Draco’s assault, but in no time at all his mouth was opening and their tongues were sparring back and forth, hands roving over the dips and swells of bodies.

Draco backed them towards the bed as their hands made quick work of their clothes, a discarded pile of clothes marking their path across the small flat. The back of his knees hit the edge of the bed and he pulled back from the kiss, shedding his trousers and socks before sliding back onto the bed. Sprawling back against the cover, he knew he presented an appealing sight: miles of pale skin stretched out against the rich sapphire blue of his duvet.

“You know what I’ve missed about having sex with wizards? The convenience of charms for lubrication. Why don’t you put that wand to good use and get up here and fuck me already?” he challenged, stroking his hand over his straining erection trapped beneath the fabric of his pants.

A whiff of self-doubt formed inside of him when, rather than taking Draco up on the offer, he stood back from the bed looking uncertain. Draco didn’t think he’d misread the situation—it was obvious that Ron wanted him—but he didn’t understand the source of Ron’s hesitation right now. Sitting up, he regarded the other man carefully. “If you’re not ready for this, we can go slowly.”

“No. No, it’s not that,” Ron said quickly, shaking his head. “Merlin, I definitely don’t want to do that!” Draco smiled, Ron’s eager refutation alleviating his doubt. “It’s just… well… I was hoping that maybe we could do it the other way.”

Draco studied the other man, who was squirming uncomfortably, large hands spread over his cock, which Draco knew from their hectic fumbling moments ago was large and very hard. Shuffling forward so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed, he wrapped his arms around Ron’s thighs, stroking up and down the skin, enjoying the feeling of the strong muscles under his fingertips.

“Are you asking whether I am willing to fuck you, Ronald?” he joked softly, kissing the backs of Ronald’s hands and nudging them away with his nose until he could rub his cheek along the straining length of cock beneath the thin cotton material of his pants.

Ron swallowed several times, apparently robbed of words as Draco grinned mischievously, mouthing at the other man’s cock, leaving the material wet in more ways than one. Eventually, he managed to corral enough sense to choke out, “We can do it the other way if you want.”

Draco slid his hands up over the firm globes of Ron’s arse, which were so much more round than his own, giving him plenty of flesh to get a good grip on. A needy whine escaped Ron’s lips as Draco pulled the other man closer, fingers kneading the plump flesh.

“If you want me to do something, all you have to do is ask,” he cooed, extending his tongue and licking at the slit of Ron’s cock which was now poking its head out the top elastic of his pants.

Ron groaned at the motion and squeezed his bum, the taut muscles under Draco’s hands a tantalising preview of how strong he would squeeze around Draco’s cock.

“If you’d be so kind, I would really like it if you would fuck me into the mattress, Draco,” Ron ground out. Draco looked up at the other man and grinned.

“You didn’t say please,” he teased.

“ _ Please _ ,” Ron groaned, the word somewhere between a plea and a taunt.

Shifting his hands around to Ron’s hips, Draco pushed the man back as he pulled his head away. Jumping up before Ron could protest the loss of contact, Draco pulled him in for another long, deep kiss until he was breathless and had to pull away again. Ron’s head followed him, his eyes still closed and his lips pursed slightly as if drawn like a magnet to Draco’s lips, and he grinned at the sight.

Ron’s dazed eyes slid open and he pulled back again, as if unaware that he had been doing it and Draco grinned. Sliding his hands down the rhythmic bumps of Ron’s ribs, he slid his fingers under the waistband of the pants and began sliding them down. “You won’t need these anymore.”

Ron’s cock sprang free, the wet tip smacking against Draco’s stomach and sending a jerk of lust shooting through his own in response. “Get on the bed, arse up,” he commanded.

Ron let out a gusty breath and nodded his head, the long hair sliding out from behind his ear where he had it tucked. Draco watched as Ron nervously crawled onto the bed and shuffled forward until he was in the centre, his eyes tracing the soft curve of Ron’s spine and down the crack of his arse to the furled sac of his testicles. Ron’s arse was dusted with a fine layer of hair, the masculine sight of it a welcome change for Draco. Manscaping had become common in the gay community and though Draco would never reject a paramour on the basis of their grooming choices, he loved the rugged masculinity of hairiness, which was so unlike his own body’s natural state.

Draco climbed up onto the bed and kneeled behind Ron, running the tip of a single finger down the other man’s crack and over the puckered rim of his arse. Ron tensed at the contact and Draco pulled away. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure. It’s just… it feels a bit weird, is all,” Ron said, chuckling softly.

“Have you never played with your arse before?” Draco asked, returning his one finger to circle the rim slowly, watching as it fluttered under his touch.

“Not really,” Ron said. “Hermione wasn’t really keen on it.”

“Not even when you masturbated?” Draco asked.

“A finger or two,” Ron admitted reluctantly, before shyly adding, “but it’s kind of hard to bend that way.”

Draco grinned to himself, thinking that that was yet another perk of regular yoga practice, but he kept that thought to himself.

“In that case, we need to do this properly. Drop your front down onto your elbows.” Ron did as he was instructed and Draco let him sit in anticipation for a few seconds before pulling Ron’s arse cheeks apart and dropping down between them.

Ron gasped and shifted under him as Draco’s lips made contact with the folds of skin and he darted his tongue out for a quick taste. “I thought you said you knew spells for that!”

Draco pulled away a fraction and said, “And I said we need to do this properly. Now,” he reached up and pushed on Ron’s back, encouraging him back down into position. “Just relax and let me get you ready.”

Draco proceeded to lick and suck Ron’s entrance, softening the muscle with his tongue and getting him relaxed. The strong muscle clamped and released around his tongue as he delved his way inside, coaxing it open. Ron took himself in hand, cupping his cock with his hand against his groin as Draco continued to work, a chorus of groans and mewls and whimpers coming from him.

Pulling back, he spat on Ron’s hole—lube charms would be used later so that Ron experienced nothing but pleasure with Draco’s cock inside him, but for now, spit would be sufficient— and rubbed the slippery gob around the area, letting the very tip of his finger begin to slip inside. He waged a slow and steady incursion into Ron’s tight heat until his index finger was engulfed down to the base. Slipping it back out again, he was just beginning another slow push in when Ron’s body shifted forward and out of his hands and Ron collapsed onto the bed.

“I’m really sorry. I was sure I wanted this, but… I don’t know. I guess maybe I don’t?” Ron babbled.

Draco sat up, looking at his finger which was still slick with his own saliva and then down at Ron, total confusion over what had just happened leaving him at a loss. “What just happened? Was it something I did?”

Ron turned so that he was on his side, legs curled up and back to Draco. He grabbed one of Draco’s pillows and held it over his head, nothing but mumbled words emerging from beneath the thick down of the pillow.

“That’s not generally what people mean when they say ‘pillow talk’,” he joked gently. “Can you please just talk to me?”

Ron lifted the pillow off and held it in the curve of his body before twisting around to look at Draco. “It felt amazing at first, but then as soon as you got your finger all the way in, I just…”

“You just what?” Draco prompted.

Ron sighed and then rolled over onto his back and pointed at his dick, which was now laying against his groin, soft. Draco gave the cock a brief glance and then looked back up at Ron. “You lost your erection.”

“Yeah,” Ron mumbled, averting his eyes from Draco and moving to hold the pillow over the area, but Draco stopped him.

“To clarify, did my finger not feel good in your arse? Or did you just lose your erection?”

Ron looked back at him, confusion written clearly across his face. “What do you mean?” he asked uncertainly.

Draco gave him a reassuring smile. “Not every man stays hard when they’ve got something up their bum, Ron, even if they are enjoying it.”

“Really?” Ron asked, looking dubious. “But don’t the two kind of… you know… go together?”

“For some men, yes. For other men, no. You can still enjoy anal intercourse and not be hard. There’s a lot of nerve endings back there, so for some men, that just kind of ‘steals the focus’ and their body focuses more on that area and less on their prick.”

“Oh,” Ron said, looking like he was thinking. “I guess it did still feel good. I just felt my cock going soft and sort of panicked.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” Draco smiled.

“It doesn’t, you know… bother you? That I’m not…?” Ron asked uncertainly.

Draco gave him a predatory grin before crawling up his body, stopping briefly to place a lingering kiss on the soft underside of Ron’s cock before continuing up his body, letting his own cock, which was very much still ready to be put to work, press up against Ron’s. “Does that feel like I’m bothered?” he whispered huskily, his lips a breath away from Ron’s, teasing.

“I suppose not,” Ron said, excitement slowly replacing the trepidation on his face. “Can we try again, then?”

“You’d best believe we can,” Draco groaned before plunging down to take Ron’s mouth again. He could feel Ron’s erection begin to return to where their bodies were resting against each other, but he didn’t focus on it, not wanting Ron to become self-conscious about it again.

“It’s kind of hard to turn around when you’re on top of me,” Ron said between kisses.

“This is just fine,” Draco said. “This way I can watch your reactions. Bend this knee for me.” He reached down and tapped the knee on the other side of Ron’s body to where he was laying and the other man did as requested.

Draco grabbed his wand from where it had been sitting on his bedside table and cast cleansing and lubrication charms; he really did miss the convenience of those after so long dating Muggles!

“Merlin, that’s a weird feeling! A little warning next time!” Ron groused, squirming a bit beneath him.

“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking straight. You’re so fucking sexy right now,” Draco said, running his hands over the thick mat of hair on Ron’s chest and dipping down to suck and nibble on the nearest nipple.

One of Ron’s broad hands landed on the back of Draco’s head, holding it against his chest, and Draco took the hint, flicking his tongue against the nub while he ran his other hand down over Ron’s stomach. He took his time exploring Ron’s balls, rolling them around in his grip and weighing them in his palm before moving down to rub at the stretch of skin behind. He gave the area a series of increasingly firm rubs, stimulating Ron’s prostate more and more from the outside until the man was bowing his chest up beneath him and Draco pulled back, grinning in triumph.

“Merlin,” Ron gasped out, licking his lips. “Why does that feel so bloody good?!”

“There’s more than one way to stimulate your prostate,” Draco said, his voice dripping with sensual promise. Ron’s cock was losing some of its firmness again, but judging by the way he was writhing under Draco’s hands, he didn’t think that was anything to worry about. Ron just seemed to be one of the lucky few whose prostate was extremely sensitive, and the thought left Draco achingly hard and leaking. They only needed one hard cock to make this work and he was more than willing to fulfil that role.

Slipping his finger down to that tight little bud again, he circled it slowly as he asked, “Are you sure?”

Wrapping his hand around Draco’s neck, Ron pulled him down and into a sultry tangle of tongues. “Merlin, yes,” he sighed, soft pink tongue poking out and tracing his lips.

Draco took him at his word and studied his face as he slid his finger back inside. It was swallowed up by Ron’s hot tunnel even easier now with proper lube, and it felt even more heavenly this time. Ron bit his lower lip and closed his eyes, his brows drawing together at the invasion, so Draco held still and let him get accustomed to the sensation for a bit. Once his expression cleared, Draco let out a relieved breath he hadn’t even realised he was holding.

He increased the teasing, first fucking Ron with that one finger and then slowly introducing a second. Ron seemed more relaxed now, his hips swivelling with each thrust of Draco’s fingers. Deciding it was time, Draco curled his fingers and aimed for the spot that he had purposely been ignoring and the effect was immediate. Ron’s sphincter clamped down on his fingers and he gasped, his hands grabbing at handfuls of the duvet, desperate for something to hold.

“Does that feel good?” Draco asked, knowing exactly what Ron’s answer would be.

The redhead was panting now as he used his bent knee to lift his hips up, seeking more of the contact. “Fuck, Draco! More!”

“I can’t wait to feel this sweet arse squeeze around me while I fuck you,” he whispered, stretching up to deliver the filthy words directly into Ron’s ear.

“Then fucking DO IT already!” Ron groaned, his head tilting back against the pillow as Draco spread his fingers, stretching him wider.

Ron’s cock was still only partially erect, but that wasn’t stopping it from leaking, painting Ron’s groin with streaks of pre-cum as it slid down his body. Draco leaned down and licked up the two streaks before sucking quickly on the head and grinning wickedly at Ron. “I’m going to need both those pillows,” he instructed.

Rearranging himself between Ron’s legs, he took the proffered pillows. “Pull your knees back, into your chest,” he instructed. Ron did as much and Draco arranged the pillows under his hips, propping his lower body up.

“If you want me to stop at any time, just tell me,” he said.

“Just go slow, at first,” Ron requested and Draco nodded his affirmation.

Grabbing his wand, he cast another lubrication charm into his hand and stroked himself a few times, making sure the entire length of his cock was coated before pushing forward infinitesimally until Ron’s rim gave way and the head of his cock slipped in. Draco paused, waiting for a sign from Ron that he should continue and after a brief time, the other man nodded. Draco slipped his hands up the back of Ron’s thighs until they were gripping the back of Ron’s knees, the other man’s arms falling away and spread out across the bed.

Draco continued the forward motion until he was fully seated, the hairs on Ron’s arse tickling against Draco’s skin. Draco eased the pressure on Ron’s legs and let them fall back against his chest, his ankles on either side of Draco’s head.

“That didn’t hurt like I thought it would,” Ron said, surprised. “I thought it would hurt, but it just kind of felt… I don’t know… kind of intense?”

Turning his head, Draco licked and kissed the ankle bone, his lips already starving for another taste of Ron’s skin. “For some people it is, but lots of preparation and lube does wonders,” he said, smiling against the skin. “Are you ready for me to start moving now?”

He couldn’t stop the groan from escaping when he felt the squeeze of Ron’s arse as he moved experimentally. “I must warn you, I may not last long if you keep doing that.”

Ron chuckled and then the sod did it again. “You’d better hurry up then,” he said, staring up at Draco with a look of challenge.

Draco was never one to back down from a challenge, so he set about his goal of turning Ron into a melted pool of Auror around his cock. Starting slow, Draco delivered luxurious, gentle thrusts, leaning forward just enough so that his cock was just barely grazing Ron’s sweet spot, driving the other man wild. It wasn’t until Ron’s ankles dug into his shoulders as he tried to use Draco’s body to lift his hips up and get a better angle that Draco decided it was time to switch things up.

Pushing Ron’s legs back, taking back full control, Draco sped up his thrusts, sawing his cock in and out of Ron’s hole, watching as it stretched and pulled around him. Ron was moaning now, begging for Draco to hurry up, for more, for faster, and Draco loved it. He tried to commit all the sights and sounds of Ron beneath him to memory, the filthy squelching of the lube and the smack of their bodies as he barreled into him over and over again.

Ron’s cock was leaking like a faucet now, a steady spurt of new pre-cum leaking out with every rub of Draco’s cock against that sensitive spot inside him. The sight fueled his lust and he sped up even more, pushing Ron’s legs back even further until he was practically bent in half and Draco was drilling down into him.

Ron wasn’t saying anything now, pushed beyond words into a space of mindless babbling, his head shaking back and forth against the pillow and his arms wrapped around his legs, sharp nails digging into his own calves.

“Not. Much. Longer,” Draco managed to spit out, each word accented by a hard thrust of his hips. Ron groaned and then he was coming, thick cum oozing out of his slit and sliding around on his chest with each of Draco’s thrusts, his toes curled so strongly that Draco wondered if they would ever straighten again. The sights, combined with the fluttering clasp of Ron’s arse as the deep, prostate-driven orgasm washed over him, proved too much for Draco and one thrust later he was coming, spurts of cum shooting out of him and painting the inside of Ron’s arse with his release.

Ron’s orgasm seemed to go on and on, his arse continuing to milk Draco’s cock with rippling contractions for minutes afterwards. When they both descended down from the stars, Draco slid out slowly, careful not to pull out too fast, and then released his hold on Ron’s legs, which collapsed back down to the bed.

They lay there, side-by-side and panting while they tried to recover their breath enough to speak. Eventually, Ron spoke in a rough croaking voice, “Bloody hell, is it always that intense?”

Draco managed to regain control of his limbs and reached up to brush the sweaty hair away from his face. “No. That was definitely something special,” he sighed, letting his arm fall down to the bed above his head.

“I’ve never had an orgasm last that long,” Ron said in wonder. “Normally it only lasts for fifteen, maybe 20 seconds, but that one must have gone on for over a minute. And I felt it  _ everywhere _ . My entire body felt charged as it just kept building and building. I felt like I was going to blow apart.”

“So it lived up to your expectations then?” Draco asked, turning his head to give Ron a cocky smirk.

“Stop fishing for compliments,” Ron turned to grin at him, but then he shifted and his face drew together in a grimace. “Fuck, my legs and hips are sore though! I wasn’t made to be folded over like a human pretzel.”

“Why do you think I started yoga in the first place?” Draco said, smiling mischievously as he turned his head to look back at the ceiling just as Ron shot him an intrigued look.

“I may need to take you up on that offer of teaching me then.”

“You think you’re going to need that particular skill in the future?” Draco asked coyly.

Ron laughed. “I sure hope so!”

“If you stay the night, we can start in the morning,” Draco offered subtly. “I like to get a quick routine in before I get ready for work.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Ron said, yawning. “I should really take a shower, but I don’t think I can be arsed to get off this bed.” Draco fumbled around until he found the slick wood of his wand and cast cleaning charms on both of them. Deciding that getting beneath the duvet would be far too much effort, he simply  _ Geminio _ ’d the whole thing and spread it out over them. Curling onto his side, he was just able to return his wand to his bedside table so they wouldn’t wake up with it lodged in an unfortunate location before his muscles gave up the ghost and he felt like he sank through his mattress.

He bounced as the bed moved with Ron’s movement and then a heavy, warm arm was slung over him as Ron pulled him back against him. A soft smile wisped across Draco’s face as the deep breaths that foretold Ron’s snoring started up and Draco realised why the sounds had been wrong while he’d been trying to sleep earlier. He knew what was missing now.


	24. Ron

Ron yawned as he dragged his right eye open, the other buried against the pillow. The sight that greeted him proved too hard to resist, however, and he rolled over onto his side so that he could better take it in. Draco was curved backwards on his knees, his forehead resting on the floor between his hands, which were in turn resting on the bottoms of his feet. Ron wasn’t sure whether the human body was actually supposed to bend like that, but he couldn’t deny that it inspired a multitude of sexual possibilities.

“I thought you were going to wake me up for this?” Ron said through another huge yawn. He was never a morning person.

“I tried,” Draco said, before sliding his arms out and pushing up into a semi handstand before lifting his torso up so that he was in a kneeling position facing Ron, an amused look on his face. Sitting back on his feet, he continued, “You seemed to think I was the Trolley Witch on the Hogwarts Express. You said you wanted two chocolate frogs and a peppermint toad and asked how long until the train arrived at Hogsmeade. I decided to let you sleep.”

Ron chuckled and threw back the cover, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and stretching his arms above his head as he sat up. “Well, I’m not complaining; that was a brilliant way to wake up. I’m going to hop in the shower before you finish if that’s okay?”

“There is a clean towel in the cabinet for you,” Draco said, bent forward with his arms stretched out in front of him across the floor.

“Cheers.” Ron winced as he stood up, a dull ache in his arse giving him a flashback to the previous night’s activities. He squeezed experimentally and smiled to himself—he could definitely live with this mild discomfort if it meant he got more of those kinds of orgasms in return. Taking a quick detour to grab his wand from his clothes, which he noticed had been picked up and were now hanging over the back of the desk chair, he made his way over to the bathroom.

Ron turned on the shower and waited for it to heat up, utilising the time to curiously inspect the contents of the medicine cabinet, the various bottles and containers all arranged neatly so their labels were facing outward. Grabbing a cotton bud, he transfigured it into a toothbrush and borrowed a dollop of Draco’s toothpaste. After he’d finished, without thinking, he dropped the toothbrush into the holder beside Draco’s and grinned at the sight.

He shook his head at his foolishness—they’d only had sex one time, for Merlin's sake, it was hardly like they were going to shack up so soon.  _ Though a shack would definitely be an upgrade from the tent _ , Ron thought wryly to himself as he slid open the glass door of the shower and stepped under the shower’s spray.

He managed to lather up his hair with the green apple-scented shampoo in Draco’s shower and was just starting to rinse it out when the hot water suddenly stopped and he was blasted with cold water so intense that he wondered if he was somehow back in that river. He screamed in shock and then scrambled out of the shower, but the slick bubbles from the shampoo made the floor slippery and before he knew what was happening, his feet were sliding out from beneath him and he landed with a thud on his arse on the tiled floor of the bathroom.

“Ron?! Are you—”

The door to the bathroom swung open and Draco was in the door, panic contorting his features for a few seconds until he took in the scene before him, when his face morphed into a look of poorly-suppressed amusement.

“Are you okay?” he managed to get out between snickers.

Ron shot him a dirty look as he pushed himself up, then winced at the now much more insistent pain in his arse.

Draco noticed Ron’s discomfort and the amusement died down as he stepped forward and ran a soft hand over the curve of Ron’s arse. “I have a numbing salve that will help with that,” he offered before pulling open the medicine cabinet and grabbing a squat, wide bottle. “What in Circe’s name happened?” he asked, a small grin trying to break free again.

“I was only in there for five minutes and then all the hot water disappeared,” Ron groused, leaning forward against the sink and trying not to groan as Draco’s slender fingers spread the cool balm against his skin, the pain quickly morphing into pleasure as the salve kicked in.

“Oh shit! I’m sorry. I didn’t think to warn you about that,” Draco said guiltily. “I always take my wand into the shower and cast heating charms on the pipes to keep the water hot.” Ron gave the other man a dirty look in the mirror and Draco stepped closer, wrapping his arms around Ron’s midsection and placing a peck on his freckled shoulder. “Forgive me?”

Ron tried to keep a serious face, but hope was lost as Draco began scattering kisses across his shoulder, over his neck, and down the other one. “I can’t just let you off the hook that easy. You’ll have to make it up to me.”

Draco’s reflection grinned at him, oozing confidence. “You have a deal.” To Ron’s disappointment, Draco pulled back and his arms unwrapped from around him. “Now hop to it. I’ll show you the charm for the shower and then leave you to it while I make us some tea and toast.”

Armed with the necessary charm, the rest of his shower went off without a hitch and he emerged to find two pieces of toast and a cup of tea waiting for him. They ate breakfast together and then Draco excused himself to take a shower of his own while Ron made himself two more pieces of toast, smiling shyly at Draco’s gentle teasing about working up quite an appetite.

After considerably more time than Ron himself had taken, even with the unplanned shower mishap, Draco emerged from the bathroom, his hair arranged carefully in a swerving coif that looked professionally styled and a towel wrapped around his waist. Ron settled in and watched the captivating sight of Draco’s morning routine, amused as Draco considered and then rejected at least a dozen potential outfits before finally settling on one.

“Do you have an important meeting today or something?” Ron asked, curious whether this was an everyday thing or whether there was some special event meriting so much care and attention.

“Actually, I do,” Draco confirmed. “I checked my messages while you were showering, just before the shouts began,” Draco shot Ron a smirk which shouldn’t have been as cute as it was considering he was taking the piss out of Ron at the moment, “and one of them was from my biggest donor. She’s been trying to get ahold of me for over a week and she sounds a bit put out, so I want to make sure I look my best.”

“I’m sure she’ll understand as soon as you explain what’s been happening.”

Draco shook his head. “She’s a Muggle, so I can’t just tell her that I was rushed out of town by the Auror that has been assigned to protect me for two weeks because we were afraid that I was being stalked by wizards unknown, but never fear, because it turns out I just have a curse that is being powered by the dark magic battery in my arm.”

Ron pretended to be considering the option for a moment and then nodded, as if reluctantly. “Yeah, you’re right. Probably best you don’t mention all of that. Maybe you could just tell her you were whisked out of town by your boyfriend for a romantic break?”

“Boyfriend?” Draco asked, one eyebrow drawing up in an inquisitive look.

“Oh, I didn’t mean… I just figured… I mean, you could just  _ tell _ her that, not that we  _ are _ boyfriends or anything,” Ron managed to splutter out, feeling flustered at his daft slip of the tongue.

Draco eyed him for a moment and then gave him a knowing look. “We can discuss that later,” Draco offered.

“Yeah?” Ron asked hopefully.

“Yes,” Draco said, and the word was barely out of his mouth before Ron had crossed the room and seized the other man, pulling him into a kiss. Eventually, Draco pushed him away and said, “Stop distracting me or I’m going to be late. What time do you have to be in the office?”

“About ten minutes after I drop you off at work,” Ron said, retreating back to the small table to finish up his tea and leave Draco to his preparations.

“You don’t need to escort me to work, you know. I’ll be fine now that I know it’s all up here.” He tapped his temple a couple of times before sitting down on the bed and slipping on a pair of thin black socks.

“We still don’t know who cursed you in the first place though,” Ron disagreed, the heady rush of his potential new romance dissolving away at the concerning thought.

“So does that mean you’re still assigned to my case?” Draco asked as he pulled up his trousers. When Ron nodded, he teased, “I hope that you don’t take all your cases to bed.”

“Technically, you took me to bed,” Ron corrected, a spike of guilt shooting through him. “But no, I really don’t. This is actually really unprofessional of me.”

Draco gave him a concerned look and then came over, leaning down so that his lips were hovering about an inch away from Ron’s. “Your secret is safe with me,” he promised, before dipping down and brushing their lips together far too briefly. “Well, me and my upstairs and downstairs neighbours probably—you were pretty loud last night.”

“Are you serious?” Ron gave the ceiling and floor nervous looks before Draco’s straight face broke and he laughed.

“No, you’re more of a deep moaning and groaning type. I doubt the sounds travelled that far.” Draco gave him a quick peck and then pulled away to continue getting dressed.

Ten minutes later, Draco was finally ready, Ron had cast a  _ Colovaria _ on his shirt so that it wouldn’t be quite so obvious that he was wearing the same clothes he wore yesterday, and they were finally ready to go. Since they were running a bit late, Draco flagged down a cab and they hopped in, the driver speeding off in the direction of the address that Draco gave him.

Ron felt like he didn’t know what to do with his hands until, gathering up his nerve, he reached over and tentatively took Draco’s hand in his, relief coursing through him when Draco slid his long, slender fingers between Ron’s. He wanted to say something, but it felt strange with the driver there, so he just looked out the window and watched the city drift by through the reflection of his grinning face.

When they pulled up to the headquarters of Draco’s organisation, Ron unfolded his long legs from the cab and waited while Draco paid the driver. Looking around, he spotted an attractive blonde woman sitting behind the wheel of an expensive-looking silver car parked just behind the cab. The woman was eyeing him suspiciously and he gave her a friendly wave. She didn’t return it and he watched as she pulled down the mirror in the visor and carefully applied a fresh layer of lipstick. She looked vaguely familiar and Ron tried to remember where he might have seen her before but came up blank.

Draco emerged just then and Ron closed the door of the cab. Draco slipped his arm through Ron’s as they walked towards the front door of the building and even though it was only a short distance away, Ron felt a hundred feet tall with such a wonderful man on his arm.

“Draco! There you are! I was starting to worry that some terrible fate had befallen you!”

Draco’s arm slipped away and they both turned to find the blonde woman that Ron had noticed before stepping gracefully out of her car. The car beeped behind her as she held a gadget over her shoulder and pressed a button. Dropping the electronic gadget into her small handbag, the golden chain of which was hanging over her forearm, she strode across the sidewalk to them.

“I’m perfectly alright, Hope. I just had a bit of a situation arise that required me to leave town for a while,” Draco explained cryptically.

“A situation, you say?” she asked. She was trying to appear nonchalant, but it was obvious that she was hoping that Draco would elaborate—and hopefully provide a few tidbits of ripe, juicy gossip.

She and Draco exchanged a brief hug and Ron squirmed as her gaze penetrated him over Draco’s shoulder. “Who’s your friend, Draco?”

Draco took a step back and wrapped an arm behind Ron’s back. “This is my friend Ron Weasley. Ron, this is Hope Saylor. She’s the beautiful angel of a woman who gave us the donation to get the music programme up and running later this month.”

Hope laughed as she held a perfectly manicured hand out for Ron to shake. “I assure you, I am not an angel. And I thought we were going to keep that donation anonymous, Draco,” she chastised.

“My apologies, Hope, but I’m sure Ron will promise to keep the information to himself,” Draco said and Ron drew a quick cross on his chest.

“How do you two know each other?” she asked, looking suspiciously between the two of them.

“We went to school together,” Ron said.

“It’s nice to see that you two have remained such close friends for so long,” Hope said, smiling.

“Actually, we weren’t friends in school,” Draco corrected her and she looked surprised.

“Oh, I just thought—you two look very comfortable with each other,” she explained.

“We’re starting to be,” Draco said, shooting Ron a surreptitious smile.

“To be honest, Draco was a bit of a wanker in school,” Ron said, earning himself a quick pinch to the belly from Draco.

“Is that so?” Hope asked, looking intrigued.

Ron shrugged and nodded before making a clucking sound with his tongue and saying, “Unfortunately, it is. But he’s pretty great now.”

“Well, it’s nice that you two have become reacquainted,” Hope said giving them a smile, but Ron thought it might be a bit forced. She was probably anxious to talk with Draco alone and was waiting for Ron to excuse himself.

“Anyway, I should be getting to work. I’ll pick you up later?” When Draco nodded in agreement, Ron turned back to the Saylor woman and added, “It was very nice to meet you, Ms Saylor.”

“It was nice to meet you too,” she said, gracing him with another one of those polite smiles.

Ron stood awkwardly for a moment, wanting to lean in and give Draco a kiss, but unsure whether it would be inappropriate or not. Draco solved his problem for him by stepping in and giving him a kiss just at the corner of his lips. “I should be done here at six.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then,” Ron said, chuffed by the fact that Draco was willing to make such an obviously romantic gesture in front of such an important benefactor. “You know how to get in touch with me if you need me.” Ron wrapped his hand around Draco’s wrist, brushing against the metal bracelet that he had insisted that Draco continued to wear until the DMLE found the culprit behind the curse.

“You’re going to be late if you don’t hurry,” Draco said, rolling his eyes at Ron fondly and gently pushing him away.

Ron gave the woman one last glance, trying one more time to place her, but it remained frustratingly out of his grasp. Waving goodbye, Ron tucked his hands into the pocket of his coat and headed off down the street, heading towards the nearest Apparition point.

Ten minutes later, he stepped into the office already craving another cuppa, but the frenetic energy of the office suggested that might not be happening anytime soon.

Harry wasn’t seated at his desk, so Ron walked over to Latham’s and asked, “What’s going on?”

“Do you still work here? I thought you had quit or something?” Latham asked, a condescending smirk on his face. How could it be that when Latham smirked, it made him hot under the collar and Ron wanted to wipe it clean with a few well-aimed hexes, but when Draco smirked at him, it made him hot in an entirely pleasurable way?

“Cut the crap, Alistair, and just tell me what the hell is going on,” Ron barked out.

“Whoa, who took a piss in your Cheeri Owls?” Latham said, leaning back in his chair. When Ron just glared at him, Latham rushed on, “Alright, calm down. The informant we’ve been working on finally coughed up a name. Since you were apparently having a relaxing lie-in, Robards himself went out with Potter to apprehend the suspect.”

“What? Really?! Who is it?” Ron asked excitedly. If they managed to finally pin down one of the leaders of the Army, then he would be able to find out what they did to Draco and how to cure it—even if he had to use some creative interrogation techniques to get them to talk.

“Alfred Cattermole,” Latham said, and Ron drew back in surprise. “Do you know him?”

“No, I’ve never met him, but I think I may have met his parents once,” Ron said, trying to remember the name of the man he had impersonated to infiltrate the Ministry and his unfortunate wife that had been interrogated by the Muggle-born Registration Commission under that foul toad of a former professor. “Reg and Mary, right?”

Latham consulted a parchment on his desk. “Yeah, that’s right. Reginald and Mary Elizabeth. He was a Pure-blood, but his wife was Muggle-born.”

“Was?” Ron asked. He’d never thought to look into what had become of the Cattermoles after that day at the Ministry and he suddenly felt bad about that. He may not have walked a mile in the man’s shoes, but he did walk an hour in them; he should have tracked them down to see what became of them after the war.

“Yeah, says here that they were captured by Death Eaters and were killed sometime during the war. Says the date of death is unknown here.”

“But Alfred survived… any other survivors in the family?” Ron asked.

“There were two daughters, but they didn’t survive the war either. No wonder this guy has such a grudge against pure-bloods, even if his dad was one. The kid lost his whole family in the war.”

“How old is he?” Ron asked, swallowing as his mouth went dry. It had been hard enough when his family had lost Fred, and he couldn’t imagine how traumatic it would be to lose your entire family. Just the thought of it made his stomach flip and the simple breakfast he’d had felt like a solid stone inside him.

“He’s nineteen, only three years younger than me. He could have been any of us,” Latham said, shaking his head before looking up at Ron. “Well, obviously not you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Ron bristled.

“You’re pure-blood. Your entire family is pure-blood. Somehow I doubt you would run off to join the Just Blood Army.”

“You say that like I give a damn about any of that blood purity nonsense,” Ron barked, scowling at the young Auror. “I lost my brother because of that whole nonsense, but that doesn’t give me the right to murder people in cold blood. It was evil when the Death Eaters did it, and it’s just as evil now that it’s the Army doing it. They may claim to be fighting for the opposite reasons than the Death Eaters, but they’re more alike than they are different. I am sympathetic to their cause, but I would never support their tactics.”

He was saved from whatever Latham was going to say when the door to the department slammed open and Harry and Robards walked in, dragging a resisting prisoner between them, thick black ropes binding his wrists together in front of him. Along with every other Auror in the room, Ron stopped what he was doing and studied the man as he jerked and writhed between the two Aurors, clearly shouting at the top of his lungs but a Silencing Charm saved them all from having to hear it.

Looking at him, you’d never guess that he was a member of a terrorist organization as he looked like he probably spent all his free time loitering at the shopping centre on the weekends with other teenagers. Alfred Cattermole could easily pass as any other Muggle with his faded slub denims and zip-up hoodie, and he couldn’t be much older than eighteen or nineteen. Ron felt bad for the kid since he’d missed out on living the normal childhood he was supposed to have. He couldn’t imagine the hardship, fear and loneliness he must have suffered through for the last eight years.

Cattermole’s gaze snagged on Ron and he paused in his resistance, recognition flitting across his face. It only lasted for a second, but Ron noticed and he took a step forward, determined to get to the bottom of what that look meant.

“I’d like to help interrogate him, sir,” Ron volunteered, refusing to take his eyes off the prisoner even as he made the request to Robards.

“If I need your help, I’ll call you,” Robards said, declining Ron’s request. When Ron began to object, Robards cut him off, “You’re too close to this Weasley, and you have a short fuse. Potter here is going to help me get the prisoner set up and restrained in the interrogation room, and then you and he are going to pick up where you left off with the logs.”

“But sir, surely now that we have him, we don’t have to waste time with those!” Harry protested. His eyes had a shine of excitement in them that hadn’t been there since he was put on desk duty. Harry had always been more interested in the hands-on fieldwork than the office work and he looked like he was finally having fun when they’d walked in earlier. Now, he cast a disparaging look back at his desk and then looked pleadingly at their boss.

“We have him in custody but that’s no guarantee that he’s going to give us anything useful. We need to continue working any potential lead,” Robards said.

“If he won’t talk willingly, there are ways to make him talk,” Ron said ominously, dodging to the side as Cattermole spat at him.

“And that kind of attitude is precisely why you’re not going anywhere near that interrogation room,” Robards said. “We need everything we do on this case to be above-the-board and completely by the book. We don’t want to give the Alliance any more fuel to throw on the fire. Now, get back to work.” Raising his voice, he boomed loud enough for everyone in the office to hear him, “All of you, get back to work!”

All of the Aurors grudgingly returned back to the work they had been doing before the big arrival, but Ron watched as the three men disappeared into the interrogation room and the door closed behind them. Robards and Harry manoeuvred the angry young man into the questioning stair and the restraints kicked into life, wrapping securely around the man’s chest. Harry pulled out his wands and ended the Incarcerous Charm that was binding Cattermole’s wrists, which was the last thing Ron saw before Robards pulled out his own wand and, staring sternly at Ron, cast a charm that transfigured the glass of the windows into bricks.

Ron had settled behind his desk but was still staring intently at the door to the interrogation room when Harry and Robards emerged a minute or so later. Robards clapped Harry on the shoulder and said something to him that put a wide smile on Harry’s face before they parted, Robards stepping into his office next door to the interrogation room and Harry crossing the bullpen to sit opposite Ron.

“You could have waited for me,” Ron grumbled as he pulled the logbook for the Hall of Recall that he had taken a brief look at yesterday in front of him and flipped it open to the marked page.

“The informant said that something big was about to happen and we had to make a move before it was too late,” Harry defended himself, drawing Ron a look of annoyance. “What was I supposed to do? Let our only chance to take down the Army get away because you weren’t here?”

Ron sighed and closed the tedious logbook again. “No, you’re right. I just wish I could have been there.”

“Don’t worry. The Weasley and Potter Dream Team will be back out in the field together any day now,” Harry said, excitement shining from his face. “Robards just said that I’ve proven I’m back in fighting form and he’s going to reinstate me back to full status. About bloody time, too!”

Ron laughed and said, “You did just about get blown to pieces. A couple of months of recovery isn’t unreasonable.”

“Easy for you to say. You weren’t the one who was dying the slow death of a thousand papercuts,” Harry huffed. He took a deep breath and then he grabbed the top half of one of the stacks off and dropped it in front of him. “But first, we need to figure out who’s calling the shots for the Army, and that means more parchment.”

Ron groaned and flipped open the logbook again. They worked in silence for a few minutes until Kingsley appeared with one of the Ministry solicitors and one of the Legilimency specialists in tow. He ducked his head in Ron and Harry’s direction but didn’t stop to talk, heading straight for Gawain’s office. For the next few minutes, Ron kept one eye on the office door as he mindlessly scanned the list of names, trying to discern the various chicken scratches. He looked up in interest as the door opened, work forgotten, and watched as Gawain, Kingsley, the severe, grey-haired Legilimencer and the nervous-looking solicitor disappeared together into the interrogation room. He stared at the brick wall, just in case he got lucky and it happened to turn back into windows, but no such luck.

Two hours later, the door remained stubbornly closed and Ron had grudgingly returned back to the logbook. He had finally worked his way back to the beginning of 2005 when a vaguely familiar name grabbed his attention. “Hey, Harry? What was the name of that Muggle Studies professor when we were at Hogwarts again?”

“Huh? Muggle Studies? The one that was killed by Riddle? B-something...Baggage? Borridge?”

“Burbage?” Ron asked, running his eyes over the elegant, leaning cursive.

“Yeah, I think that was it,” Harry said, nodding. “I never took Muggle Studies, so I never really knew her. Why do you ask?”

Ron tried to envision the woman but all he remembered was that she had blonde hair and kind of looked like a football mum. Hermione had introduced him to her once, but as he wasn’t in Muggle Studies, he hadn’t gone out of his way to get to know her or make a good impression. Besides her field of studies, her hair colour, and the horrifying details of her death, Ron didn’t know anything else about her.

“I wonder if she had any family, because there’s an entry in this log for an  _ H. Burbage _ .”

Picking up his quill, he scrawled a quick note on an interdepartmental memo. After folding it, he tapped it with his wand and it zoomed out of the room and off to the records department.

“Burbage… Burbage…” Harry was muttering to himself and rifling through the various piles on his desk. “Why does that sound familiar?” Ron watched him inspect and discard several parchments before he held one up in victory. “Found it! I knew I’d seen that name somewhere!”

“What is it?” Ron asked, anticipation driving him to his feet as he leaned over his desk, trying to get a better look at the parchment in Harry’s hand.

“I didn’t place the name at the time, but a couple of weeks ago I came across the same name, H. Burbage, on the Azkaban visitor logs.” Harry handed the parchment over to Ron, who scanned it while Harry continued, “I asked the governor of the prison and he said she was a donor that asked for a tour of the prison.”

“Is that common?” Ron asked.

Harry shrugged. “Visitors to the prison aren’t uncommon, per se, but it’s usually to see one specific prisoner. The governor said she wanted to speak to a few different prisoners. Said she wanted to hear directly from them about what their experience there had been like and what they thought would be useful to promote rehabilitation.”

Ron’s brows drew together as he scanned the paper for the date and saw that it was from almost 18 months ago. Consulting the Hall of Recall logbook in front of him, he saw that that entry was from January 2005, almost two years ago. It was probably just a coincidence, but something was nagging at Ron about the whole thing.

“These entries are from almost a year ago. Maybe it’s just a weird coincidence,” he suggested, staring at the elegant handwriting and trying to get the puzzle pieces scattered around his brain to arrange into a pattern that made sense.

“Yeah, maybe,” Harry said uncertainly. “But it’s worth taking a deeper look at.”

“Did you talk to her? What did she say?” Ron sank back into his chair and dropped the parchment on the desk in front of him, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, a headache creeping up on him. Sliding his eyes open, he saw the metal bracelet around his wrist and encircled it with his other hand, reassuring himself that if something was wrong, he’d know right away. The metal was only as warm as his skin, nothing to be alarmed about.

“Yeah. She said she’d come into some money and she wanted it to do some good. Wanted to put it towards causes that would make the wizarding world a better place. Apparently, her donation went towards setting up and funding a Muggle Studies course right there in Azkaban. A lot of the prisoners are barred from doing magic once they are released, either over the course of their probation or permanently, and they’re just dropped into the Muggle world to figure it out on their own. This new programme is geared towards giving them some of the basic skills they’ll need, like how Muggle currency works, banking, finding somewhere to live… stuff like that.”

An interdepartmental memo flew in and landed in Ron’s inbox and he was just reaching for it when the door to the interrogation room flew open and the four Ministry officials swarmed out. Ron absentmindedly unfolded the paper aeroplane as he watched Robards shout for Latham to get his arse in his office right that moment. Latham seemed to know better than to ask any questions and scurried into the office while the rest of the Aurors gave him questioning looks.

Robards’s office door slammed behind him, locking him in with Robards and Kingsley and leaving the other two men standing outside alone. The solicitor stood there looking around uncomfortably while the Legilimencer leant back against the wall and crossed his arms and legs, looking unperturbed by the various whispered conversations and curious glances that were being aimed in their direction.

Wondering what Latham could have possibly done to land himself in such hot water, Ron pulled his eyes away from the spectacle and reviewed the records file on H. Burbage that he’d requested.

“Looks like Professor Burbage did have a sister,” he confirmed. “Hope Burbage, born April 17, 1972—says here they were actually fraternal twins. The family moved to Canada in 1973, just as the First Wizarding War was starting to ramp up.” Ron scanned the document, reading aloud the interesting bullet points of her life. “Charity Burbage, moved back to England when she was twenty-two and became Professor Burbage three years later. Her sister stayed in Canada so there’s not much info here other than that she married a rich real estate mogul named—FUCK!”

Harry gave Ron a concerned look, but he didn’t even see it as he threw the memo down onto his desk and whirled around, sprinting for the door to head to the designated Apparition points, frustration burning in his veins at the additional delay caused by the charms placed on the Ministry that restricted Apparition directly into the department.

Too much time had already passed. Draco may already be dead.


	25. Draco

“ _ Crucio!” _

Draco’s back arched as the curse tore through him, shredding him from the inside once more. He had lost track of how long this torture had been going on, but he marvelled that his nerve endings were still functioning. The wand tip dropped down to point at the ground again and he gasped in a desperate inhale. He didn’t know what was worse, the torturing curse itself, or the aftermath when his muscles seized and ached from their violent contractions. He felt like he had just run three back-to-back marathons.

“Is that all you have to say? You’re  _ sorry _ ?” Hope Saylor yelled, her voice rising to a shriek that nobody else would hear. If his screams of agony weren’t enough to break through the  _ Muffliato _ she had around the room, there was no way anyone would hear her angered shout.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Draco sobbed, cringing when the wand she held flicked as if being raised for another strike. It burned that he was being held at the mercy of his own wand, the insult piled onto the injury.

Draco had been taken totally by surprise by her attack. After Ron left, he had ushered her into his office, instructing the barebones staff that they weren’t to disturb them. He’d gotten the impression from her voice message that something was wrong, and Draco didn’t want to upset his most generous donor.

He’d offered her something to drink and she had taken him up on his offer, requesting a cup of coffee with two sugars and two creams. Draco had excused himself from the office, returning a few minutes later with a cup of coffee in one hand and a tea for himself in the other.

If only he’d listened to his instincts and not taken off the alarm bracelet, he wouldn’t be in this mess now. When he’d handed her the mug, she’d noticed the metallic bracelet and commented on it, asking to see it. She said that it would be perfect for the man that she had started seeing and wanted to know where he’d gotten it.

Of course, he couldn’t tell her where he’d gotten it, and it’s not like she would be able to procure one herself, but when she’d stood there, patiently waiting for him to hand it to her, he’d done so, reluctantly sliding the hoop off his wrist and handing it over. He’d handed over his only hope of aid merely because she’d asked him to. If she weren’t so keen on torturing him, he would do it himself.

“I want you to tell me WHY! Why  _ her _ ?” she asked, her voice cracking. He risked a look up at her but by the time he could lift his head, there was no sign of the pain he’d heard on her face. She stared coldly back at him, determination chiselling away the softness of her features.

“Do you want to know why? Do you really want to know?” he asked. She didn’t move or make any other acknowledgement that she heard his question but merely stared him down, eyes hard. “Because she was brave. She had the audacity to teach the truth, that Muggles and Muggle-borns are just the same as us. And for that, Tom Riddle decided she had to die.”

“You really expect me to believe that?” she spat. “You expect me to believe that you’ve changed? That you’re not that same vile boy that believed all the same things? That No-Majes are trash and that their only use is to live in servitude to wizardkind?”

“No,” Draco said sadly. “I don’t expect you to believe me.” Her brows crinkled in confusion and his wand in her hand dropped a fraction of an inch before she seemed to realise it and she raised it again defensively.

“That’s because you haven’t changed. You’re still the same prejudiced piece of shit that you were when you sat there and watched him kill my sister. When you watched him feed her to that beast of his!” A fresh round of tears pooled along her lower lid before spilling over, leaving two new mascara-edged streaks across her once-perfect makeup. Her wand hand shook as she wiped the tears away with her other hand.

“I know you won’t believe me, and I don’t blame you for that,” Draco said, swallowing to try and clear the lump in his throat. “But I  _ have _ changed. I am not perfect and I still have a long way to go, but I’m not that same scared boy.”

“You were of age!” she screamed.

“I was seventeen!” Draco shouted back. He may have been legally of age within the wizarding world, but he was still so young. He was a scared child that was just trying to survive the whims of a madman. “And I have never murdered anyone, unlike you.”

A mirthless laugh erupted out of her and she stared at him, incredulous. “I never murdered anyone. They killed themselves. The curse only works on the guilty of heart; that’s the beauty of it. It’s the guilt that conjures the visions and slowly drives them mad.”

“I thought it was the Mark?” he asked, confused.

“You should appreciate this,” she said, giving him a satisfied smirk as she walked over to the corner of his office where an assortment of musical instruments that she had helped pay for was sitting, delivered while he was away and ready for the music programme to start next month. He wondered if he would be here to see it—what would happen to this whole outreach programme if he wasn’t. He hoped that somebody would keep it going even in his absence.

She didn’t say anything else as she slipped her hand through one of the handles and lifted the case off of the pile, carrying it over to his desk. His eyes darted to his wand, which she set down on his desk tantalisingly close, but with his arms bound to the arms of his chairs with an  _ Incarcerous _ , there was no hope of him being able to reach it.

“The Mark is merely the instrument. Anybody could pick up a violin and make sound,” she illustrated her words by opening the case and pulling out the child-sized violin from the case and plucking on one of the strings, “but only a musician can channel all of that potential into a concerto.”

She ran the bow over the strings, her fingers moving nimbly over the strings and filling the room with a soft melody that was in complete contradiction to the atmosphere in the room. “The curse doesn’t only feed on the power of the Mark; it also feeds on someone’s guilt. Their culpability. If you weren’t guilty, the curse would have held no power over you.”

“Then how come I’m still here?” Draco asked. The truth was he did feel guilty. He knew that he had done horrible things in his past that he still wasn’t sure he deserved forgiveness for. Was it only a matter of time before that guilt finally consumed him with the help of the curse?

“You’ve lasted longer than I thought you would,” she conceded. “Your father put on airs too, claiming that he was rehabilitated. That he had seen the error of his ways. That he wanted to make amends for his mistakes. But he hadn’t changed. He barely lasted three months.”

“My father was killed by another inmate,” Draco eventually managed to force out, not wanting to believe what she said was true. He had seen all of the wounds; nobody could inflict that much damage on themselves—the idea that his father could have done that to himself was too onerous to comprehend. He knew that the Ministry had not officially ruled out suicide since he was found totally alone in a locked room, but Draco had always presumed that one of Lucius’s many enemies had found a way to get to him. Bribed one of the guards, perhaps.

“You didn’t really think that Jugson was the only other Death Eater I’ve dealt out justice to, do you? Your dear old dad died by his own hand… with a little help from the curse,” she said mockingly. “He did the world a favour. It was probably the only honourable thing he ever did. To be honest, I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did. I think it was only his stubbornness and pride that allowed him to resist the curse for as long as he did. Jugson barely lasted a month.”

Draco was temporarily distracted by the screaming ache of his body. His father had been murdered in a way, just not in any way he would ever have imagined.

Hope Saylor—Burbage, he corrected himself—looked pleased by his response to her revelation. “It was easy enough to arrange a few minutes of free time alone with him. The guard that was assigned to escort me around the prison to meet with the prisoners was easily persuaded by a pretty face paired with a low-cut top. My skin was crawling the entire time I was in there with him. It took all my strength not to scratch his eyes out with my bare hands. If I had been allowed to keep my wand on me, I don’t think I would have been able to stop myself from killing him right then and there. I thought I had been prepared for how I would feel, after Jugson, but he was just another foot soldier in that dark army; your father was one of Voldemort’s most trusted generals.”

“Not by the end of the war. By then, my family was just doing anything we could to stay alive.”

“To claw your way back into the trusted circle, you mean,” she sneered, but Draco shook his head.

“He was insane. There would have never been any safety if he had lived. It would only have been a matter of time until he’d killed us all. It’s why we walked away during the Battle of Hogwarts.”

“Do you expect some sort of prize for that?” she asked. “You don’t get commended for turning your back and walking away from the mess that you helped create. If you had really changed sides, you would have stayed to fight against him. You were just cowards, and you got rewarded for it! The Wizengamot granted all of you leniency for your pusillanimity. My sister’s blood stains your hands, and you walked away with a slap on the wrist!”

Another round of Crucio was fired at him as she funnelled her rage through his wand and into him. Time stretched out as the pain shredded his determination to live. When it stopped, seconds or possibly hours later, he was left empty and cavernous in the wake, devoid of all sensation as his body came back online. By the time he was able to remind his muscles how to work and look up at her, her mask of composure was back in place.

“You’re not going to get away with this, you know?” he panted, his eyes burning as sweat ran down into his eyes.

“Do you mean your little Auror friend, Ron Weasley?” she taunted. “Have you forgotten this already?” Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the bracelet and held it up between two fingers.

“I haven’t forgotten,” Draco said, shaking his head. “But it doesn’t matter. Even if you kill me, he’s still going to track you down. He’ll catch up to you and then you’ll be the one behind bars in Azkaban.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment and then laughed. “You don’t think I’ve thought of that? Why do you think I’m here now? I don’t actually like to be involved in this part; it’s all a little… messy for my liking. I’d rather sit back and let the monsters destroy themselves. Only, according to my informant in the DMLE, they’re getting a little too close for comfort. I don’t have time to let the curse slowly drive you mad, it seems, so I’m going to have to be a little more hands-on with you.”

“Informant?” Draco fished for more information on the off-chance that by some miracle he was able to get out of this.

“How do you suppose I knew about the bracelet?” she asked, flipping it back and forth in her fingers. “Alistair is a sweet boy, but not a very good Auror, I must say. All I have to do is part my legs to part his lips—very chatty after a good shag… well, a mediocre shag, if I’m totally honest. Young lads have the advantage of stamina, but with none of the finesse and experience that comes with a man my age.”

Draco remembered Ron complaining about the cocky young Auror. From what Ron had told him, it sounded to Draco like Alistair Latham was jealous of Ron and Harry’s fame and lashed out at them because he felt he had to prove himself. Someone insecure and desperate for validation like that would be easy prey for someone looking to exploit them. It was no wonder Hope was able to wheedle information out of him.

“How romantic,” Draco said dryly before he could stop himself, fortunately only earning him an exasperated look from the woman rather than a fresh round of pain.

“Don’t tell me that you’re one of those naive people that think that sex and romance are mutually inclusive. He got what he wanted out of it, and so did I—everyone is happy.”

Draco yanked at his bonds, shifting the chair forward a fraction of an inch. “I have to disagree with you there.”

Hope cast a glance down to his wrists, looking amused. “Well, you can’t please everyone, can you?” She scrutinised him for a moment before asking, “What is going on with you and Mr Weasley, exactly?”

“You can’t honestly expect me to answer that?” Draco asked.

Hope shrugged and took a seat in one of the chairs, making a show out of crossing one long, bare leg over the other, her skirt far too short to be comfortable in the chilly mid-December temperatures outside.

“I’ve been wondering where you two got off to. I knew you must be together since you both disappeared around the same time, but my Auror lover didn’t seem to know where you two went. Tell me, did something happen between the two of you while you were gone?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Draco said, trying not to panic. He didn’t want to let her know that Ron was important to him, terrified of what she would do to Ron if she thought it would be an effective way to strike at him.

“Don’t play coy, Draco. I saw the two of you earlier. There’s obviously something between you two.”

“He’s the Auror in charge of protecting me. That’s it,” he lied.

“Is that so? So you’d kiss any Auror that happened to pull that assignment, would you? I wonder if I should feel jealous?” she said teasingly. Draco couldn’t understand how this woman could be the same one that had used an Unforgivable Curse on him only moments ago. Now, she seemed more like the friendly, coy, almost flirtatious woman that he had come to know over the last six months. He sighed.

“I understand why you would choose me as a target, but what I don’t understand is why all the other stuff?” When she gave him a questioning look, he elaborated, “Why would you donate to my programme? Why would you give money to someone you hate that much? It doesn’t make sense.”

She bit her lower lip and looked away, looking uncomfortable at his question. “I needed a reason to get close to you, to be able to cast the curse on you. It requires proximity,” she said, but Draco shook his head at the flimsy excuse.

“It’s not like I travel with a full security detail. You could have gotten close enough to curse me very easily. Besides, even if you did present yourself as a potential donor, you didn’t have to fund the music programme. Why would you do that if you hate me so much?” he asked, genuinely curious. He hoped that maybe she’d seen something that gave her hope for him in that meeting, even if she didn’t want to admit it to herself. Maybe if he could get her to admit that, it would make her reconsider her plans for him.

“Did you ever talk to my sister?” she asked solemnly. The thready, pleading sound of Charity Burbage’s voice as she hung above them, pleading for Severus to do something, ran through his mind and he shuddered. He could have probably counted on two hands the number of times that he had spoken to her in the four years that she had been a Professor at Hogwarts, but that plea for help would haunt him for the rest of his life.

When he didn’t answer, too lost in the memories, she went on, “No, I don’t suppose you would have. A pretentious pure-blood such as yourself would never take Muggle Studies. Well, you missed out, because she was a really wonderful teacher and you could have learned a lot from her.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Draco said.

“Don’t patronise me!” she shouted. “Don’t pretend like you regret her death. You saw what he did to her and you did nothing to stop it. You didn’t abandon his cause. She hurt absolutely no one and you watched her die and it did nothing to discourage you from your chosen path.”

He knew that she had watched his memory of that day; she had already told him that much. It had been years since he had watched the full memory extracted from his mind and submitted as evidence during their trials, but he still remembered the fear he’d felt that day. The rigid way his mother had held herself, conscious that one wrong move could spell the end of them. How could it not be obvious to anyone that watched it that they were terrified and just trying to survive?

“You saw what he was like. There was no escape once he had you under his control,” he whispered. “I didn’t have any choice by that point.”

She was already shaking her head in denial before he had even finished speaking. “You always have a choice. Your choices are what sat you at that table and my sister’s choices are what got her killed.” She paused, overcome with emotion as she swallowed a few times, wiping away the fresh tears from her eyes.

“We grew up in Canada. Did you know that?” Draco shook his head and she nodded before continuing. “My parents moved us there just as the First Wizarding War was starting to turn nasty. We were only one, so neither of us remembered anything about England. My parents couldn’t trace their lineage back to any of the Sacred Twenty-Eight families or anything, but they were still suspicious of No-Majes. When we were growing up, they were always so reserved and distant whenever we would bring friends home from school.”

Hope smiled fondly, enjoying a private memory. “Charity never let that stop her though. She was always the braver of the two of us. If we had gone to Hogwarts, I’m convinced that she would have been sorted into Gryffindor. She was so brave and outgoing and confident. When I met my ex-husband, my parents demanded that I end our relationship, but she stood with me against them.” She let out a huff of breath which was not quite a laugh. “Of course, he turned out to be a terrible choice in the end, but I couldn’t see that then. I was blinded by my love for him.

“My parents eventually came around and we were able to reconcile before they passed, but it was my sister that gave me away at my wedding.” The happiness bleached away and she looked hollow, as if her next words could shatter her. “And then one month later, she left to move back here. She said she wanted to do her part to abolish that fear and discomfort around No-Majes that seems to get instilled in children over here.”

Draco couldn’t help but feel a kindred connection with the former Professor. He genuinely wished that he  _ had _ taken her class back then. He wondered where he would have ended up now if he had, whether he would have been able to step out from under his mother and father’s beliefs early enough for it to have made a difference. Unfortunately, even a Time-Turner couldn’t take him back far enough to find out.

“She gave up her family and came back here because she wanted to help all of those children. She hated everything that Voldemort stood for. She gave up her life for the cause and the Ministry wouldn’t even tell me what happened to her. Bad optics that the acting Minister for Magic was in the room when she was murdered.” Charity’s knuckles turned white as her grip on his wand tightened. “After years of getting the run-around and shady half-answers, I had to track the memories down myself to find out what happened to her. I had to watch my wonderful sister die...like that.”

Feeling like he should say something, he offered what small consolation he could. “I know you won’t believe me, but if I could go back and do it all again, I would sign up for her class. Believe it or not, I was always a little curious. I couldn’t tell any of my Slytherin classmates, of course, but I would overhear the students from the other houses talking about her class in Arithmancy afterwards and they always sounded so excited about what they’d just learned.”

“She was so passionate and enthusiastic, and it was hard to not feel that rub off on you,” Hope said, smiling. “Even over the stupidest things. You should have seen how excited she was when she discovered the theremin and taught herself to play it. She loved music of all kind and always seemed to have a natural affinity for it, but she never really got very good at any one instrument because it was never long before she discovered something else and was quickly obsessed with that.”

Draco understood now. “That’s why you agreed to fund the music programme. It was because you wanted to see your sister’s love of music live on,” he said quietly.

“I may hate you, but when you told me what you were soliciting donations for, I knew it was a sign. She would have loved what you’re doing with that programme.” Her voice trailed off as uncertainty crept over her.

“I wish she was still here to see it. I would have welcomed her suggestions and help,” he said honestly. “Someone with her passion and dedication is exactly who I was looking for to run it.”

“Yeah, well, she’s not here. And you’re partially to blame for that. But even though I knew I had to hold you accountable for that, I didn’t feel right about depriving those children of the chance to discover a love of music as she did. That’s why I gave you the money. I told you that, actually: ‘Charity for Charity’s sake’.”

“—Charity’s sake,” Draco echoed her in a barely audible whisper, her words from all those months coming back to him. Not ‘charity’, ‘Charity’.

Draco watched, empathy tearing at him, as Hope Burbage fought to stifle the sobs that seemed determined to be heard. He should probably hate this woman for what she’d put him through—and he definitely wasn’t all that keen on her at the moment—but he found he didn’t have the energy for that in him. Hate and rage had brought them together in this room, but it wasn’t merely her that was to blame. They were both stuck in a game of dominos, Gaunt’s rage tipping over onto Riddle, who himself tipped over Lucius, and down the chain, until here they sat, the final result of a chain of destruction.

He cleared his throat, tears threatening him as well. “I’ve left instructions.” She looked up at him in confusion and he elaborated. “In case something happens to me. I’ve left instructions and made sure that everything was set up with the outreach programme to be able to keep it running.”

“Why are you telling me that?” she asked, voice rough from crying.

“I just want you to know that your sister’s legacy will live on. If I had known, I would have named it after her, but at least her spirit and beliefs will be protected. I thought that might bring you a measure of comfort.”

“You’re just trying to talk me into letting you go,” she accused, her voice flat and robbed of emotion as if she was running out of energy to keep going with this whole affair and wanted to be done with it already.

“I do want you to let me go. I’m not going to pretend I don’t,” Draco agreed. “But just ask yourself, would Charity want you to do this? Would this be something she’d be proud of you for doing?”

“You don’t know anything about her. Don’t pretend like you do.”

“I’m not pretending. I may not have known her when she was alive, but based on what you’ve told me, I don’t think she’d want you to do this. And not just because of me and what I’ve been doing with my life after the war—though I think she probably would approve of that—but also because she sounds like she was a  _ good _ person, and she wouldn’t want to see anyone, and especially not her beloved sister, resort to these means.”

“I’ve done all of this for her,” she said, sucking in a breath as a fresh sob rose from her chest.

“Did you? Or did you do it for you?” he pushed. He knew how she must feel, how the rage and frustration could build up inside you until you felt like you had to do something to vent it or you might explode, but he was betting that she was having doubts about this whole thing. If she had really wanted to kill him, she could have done so hours ago. She wanted to be persuaded away from this decision. “I’ve been where you are. I know what it’s like to feel that rage eating you up from the inside. To have the desire for revenge consume you. But I can tell you that it won’t make that pain and grief go away.”

She didn’t say anything or look at him, but he figured that the fact that she didn’t raise his wand and end him right there was a good sign. Instead, she stood slowly and made her way past him. He craned his head around to look over his shoulder and saw that she was standing at the window, looking contemplative. She looked down at the street and she stepped forward. He didn’t know what she’d seen, but he watched as her body tensed, a whispered “What…” dying on her lips.

His head whipped around at an explosion of sound, just in time to see the door of his office blast open moments before a familiar freckled hand emerged, tightly clasping a wand.

“Ron!” he managed to shout before he was suddenly jerked into the air, his feet dangling above the ground as the chair he was still firmly tied to hovered in the air. A warm gust of breath on his ear sent goose pimples down his neck as he felt the tip of his wand poke into the flesh under his jaw.

“I’ll kill him. I promise you I will. Not one step closer!” she yelled, drawing Ron up short just as he emerged into the small office.

Ron’s eyes darted down to the point where Draco’s wand was being held against his own throat and then quickly around the room before returning to stare just over Draco’s shoulder.

“There’s no way out of here for you,” Ron said slowly.

“I see that you’ve evacuated the building, but why don’t I see your partner, hmm?” she said, a mounting panic clear in her voice as she spoke.

“He’s on his way. Should be here any moment,” Ron assured her and Draco fought to suppress a groan. He was sure that Ron was lying and that he’d probably charged in there half-cocked. Draco just hoped that Ron had left enough of a bread trail for Potter to follow to be able to piece together where he’d run off to.

“I think you’re lying,” she said, calling Ron out on his bluff. “I think you figured out that your boyfriend here was in trouble and you went running off like some knight in shining armour to rescue him.” The only response Ron betrayed was a small tick in his jaw, but perhaps his silence spoke volumes because she huffed out a laugh. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Just put the wand down and let me take you into custody without anyone else getting hurt,” Ron instructed her as he took a tentative step forward. The wand tip dug deeper into his neck and he moved away instinctively. The whole situation was so similar to the one that they’d been in only days ago that he couldn’t stop a bubble of laughter from erupting out of him.

“What’s so funny?” Hope bit out from where she was standing, using Draco as a human shield between herself and Ron.

“It’s just that history always repeats itself,” he said, shrugging his shoulders as much as was possible given his restraints. The wand edged further in and his laughter morphed into a hiss of pain at the movement. Ron was watching him nervously but then Draco saw the moment when an idea occurred to him, his brow smoothing out and a bud of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Draco was hovering a few feet in the air, effectively blocking the majority of Burbage’s body from Ron’s line of sight, which dropped to her feet for a flash before shooting back up.

The chair dipped and rose again as she struggled to maintain the magic holding up his weight. Ron pasted on a confident smile and then nodded at the window behind Burbage. “Hey, Harry!”

Time lost all meaning for the next few seconds as everything seemed to slow down. He felt the dull rounded tip of his wand slide away at the same time that Ron dropped his wand arm and pointed it at the floor below Draco’s chair and shouted a familiar spell, but one which was totally out of context. Confusion barely had time to take hold of Draco’s mind before there was a shout of surprise and a crashing sound from behind him and he was plummeting back down to the ground, the chair teetering on two legs before tilting over and leaving him lying parallel to the floor.

Time reasserted its hold on them all as Ron leapt over him and disarmed Burbage, securing her in an  _ Incarcerous  _ just as Harry Potter burst through the door.

“You arsehole!” he shouted at Ron as he took in the scene. “You should have told me where you were going so you had backup!”

“I’ve secured Burbage and she’s out cold right now. Can you take her in for me?” Ron asked, not sparing a glance for his best friend and partner as he lifted Draco so that he was seated upright and set about cancelling the spell binding Draco to the chair. 

The surprise was starting to wear off and Draco rubbed his newly freed wrists as he shouted, “You arsehole! I knew you blew in here without a plan!” He barely registered the look of surprise that Potter gave him, but he paid it no mind, too pissed at Ron risking his life like that to be concerned about whatever Potter was thinking.

“Yeah, alright,” Potter reluctantly agreed, eyeing the back of Ron’s head where he was knelt in front of Draco, unravelling the magic restraining his ankles. “But we’re going to talk about this later.”

“I’m going to take Draco to St Mungo’s,” Ron said.

“I’m fine, I don’t need to—whoa!” he gasped as he went to stand up and his legs gave out on him and Ron grabbed hold of him, wrapping his arm around Draco’s waist as he pulled Draco’s arm over his shoulders.

“You were saying?” Ron asked, amusement and naked relief writ clear across his face.

“Looks like you swept him off his feet,” Harry noted dryly as he levitated the ramrod stiff form of Hope Burbage in the air. Draco shot him a glare, but there was no heat behind it.

“Perhaps a visit to St Mungo’s is in order,” Draco said with as much dignity as he could muster, currently unable to support his own weight as he was.

“Go on,” Harry said. “I’ll take her in and send a clean-up crew to take care of this mess and wipe the memories of his employees.”

“Thanks, mate,” Ron said, relieved.

Under his breath so as not to be heard by Potter, Draco whispered, “That was a creative use of that lube charm, but I can think of a better use for it.”

Ron chuckled and cast a nervous look over at his best friend, who seemed to be overly preoccupied with securing the prisoner for transport. He turned back to Draco, wearing an expression that was so rich with emotion that Draco thought he could peel back the layers for hours and not reach the bottom.

“I was so scared that I would be too late and you’d be…” Ron trailed off, swallowing hard as if trying to force down the fear.

Draco sucked in a breath through his clenched teeth as he lifted his hand to stroke along the square line of Ron’s jaw, the muscles in his arm letting him know that they were just as overtaxed as those in his legs. He pushed through it, the need to stroke Ron’s soft pink lower lip with his thumb compelling enough to overcome the inertia.

“I’m alright. You made it in time,” he reassured him, smiling when Ron puckered his lips to give the pad of his thumb a chaste kiss. Letting his hand drop down to rest against Ron’s chest, imagining he could feel the strong beat of his heart under his palm, Draco simpered and said, “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

Ron’s beaming smile was so powerful that Draco felt like he could draw strength from it, like a bright, sunny day after months of overcast, rainy skies. “I’m going to hold you to that.”


	26. Epilogue

“I thought you said I couldn’t chase you off easily?” Ron gently mocked, slipping his arm through Draco’s and tugging him up the drive.

“When I said that, I was thinking of murderers and terrorists, not  _ this _ .” Draco cast a nervous look up at the building and slowed down again, pulling Ron to a near standstill.

Ron stopped and turned to Draco, suddenly nervous. “You’re not really serious, are you?” he asked when Draco just bit on his lip and sent another apprehensive look at the patchwork architecture of the Burrow. “Draco, you’ve already met my mum and dad and I thought you liked them.”

“I did like them,” he protested.

“Well then, why do you look like you’re about to chunder all over your shoes?” Ron asked. The amusement faded as a look of concern crossed his face. “It’s not the curse, is it? Are you having a relapse?” Ron wrapped his hand around Draco’s left forearm as if he could keep it at bay just by sheer will.

The Healers still hadn’t worked out a counter-spell for the curse, and Hope Saylor had so far refused to provide any insights to speed the work along. He was doing okay so far though. Occasionally, his heart rate would speed up and he would be sure that someone nefarious was watching him, but now that he knew what was causing it, he was able to get hold of himself by using some deep breathing and relaxation techniques.

“It’s not the curse,” he said, shaking his head once and closing his eyes as he took a deep breath. “It’s just… what if they don’t like me?”

Ron watched him confusedly for a few seconds. “They already like you. My mum’s been cajoling me to invite you round for Christmas dinner since I came home.”

Draco sighed and shot Ron a frustrated look. It looked like he was going to have to spell this out for the ginger-haired dolt. “Yes, but that was  _ before _ I started buggering their youngest son,” he explained, unable to stop the pleased smile that pulled at his mouth at the gobsmacked look on Ron’s face. He loved the way the curve of Ron’s ears turned a vibrant red whenever Draco baldly talked about their sex life. He was curious whether Ron had been the same with Hermione and their sex life, but some things were better left unprovoked—Draco didn’t need the mental image of Ron and Hermione in his mind every time he went in for his check-ups.

Ron had told his family that he and Draco were dating and they had all taken the news with an easiness that suggested that Ron’s love life had been the subject of more than one family discussion. They still weren’t officially a couple to the wider wizarding world yet, choosing instead to get to know each other without the constant scrutiny of the press, but it was only a matter of time before their relationship would become more widely known.

There had already been several conjectures published in the gossip section of the Prophet commenting on their newfound ‘friendship’ though. The DMLE may have put a stop to the more radical Army wing, but the Just Blood Alliance had already been quoted several times commenting on how disappointing it was to see the Weasleys shifting towards supporting pure-blood ideals. Although the slander still irked Ron, he decided that he wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of knowing as much. He was going to date whomever he wanted—and that was Draco—and he wasn’t going to feel bad about that because some stranger wanted to apply motivations to it that he didn’t actually have.

Clearing his throat, Ron made a valiant effort to pretend that Draco hadn’t just made his cock half-fill with a few simple words. “I think that as long as you don’t decide to announce that over pudding, it should be fine.” Ron stepped in, closing the distance between them, and slid his arms around Draco’s neck. With his lips brushing teasingly against Draco’s, he whispered, “And the sooner we get in there, the sooner we can go back to your flat and you can bugger me to your cock’s content before you have to leave for France.”

Ron’s parents were far more welcoming and not nearly as terrifying as Draco’s mother was, so Draco would be making his usual trip to visit his mother alone again this year.

Draco slid his arms under Ron’s coat and over the mustard-coloured jumper with a seriffed R knitted across the chest. He let his hands wander down over the roundness of Ron’s denim-clad arse as they kissed, their breaths visibly intermingling in the cold air. “In that case, what are we waiting for?”

Ron laughed and landed one more kiss on him before disentangling his arms from around Draco’s neck. “I figured that might help motivate you to overcome your fear.”

“I don’t know what’s more tempting, your arse or the idea of getting you out of that horrid jumper,” Draco said, his nose scrunching as he looked down at the brightly-coloured yarn creation. “That colour should only ever be seen spread on a hot dog.”

Ron looked down at his jumper and held it out at the waist to better inspect it. Shrugging, he let it settle back into place against his hips. “You’d better hope she didn’t make you a mustard one then.”

Draco looked at him, startled. “Your mum knit me a sweater?” he asked in a tremulous voice. He and Ron had only been dating for two weeks now. It perhaps should feel odd and too soon to be attending a family function together and be included in such an important family tradition, but the prospect that he could soon have one of those hand-made sweaters made especially for him made him feel ebullient.

“Of course,” Ron said simply, as if the answer was so obvious that it didn’t bear being voiced. When he saw the trembling movement of Draco’s lips as he tried to contain his reaction to being so openly welcomed by Ron’s family, Ron gave him a kind, amused look and pulled Draco in for another quick kiss. “Come on, let’s go in.”

Draco pulled back and smiled, a feeling that he was about to be gifted with the kind of family that he’d always dreamed of having making his spirits soar. “Hunter green would go really nicely with that ochre colour.”

“I figured you would want a green one. Typical Slytherin.” Ron winked at him and, together, they walked up to the front door of the Burrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Cover created with the help of stock resources by ZProfire and kuschelirmel-stock.


End file.
